

ho' v# 




140 



PHILLIPSLAND; 



COUNTRY HITHERTO DESIGNATED PORT PHILLIP: 



ITS PRESENT CONDITION AND PROSPECTS, 



A HIGHLY ELIGIBLE FIELD FOR EMIGRATION. 



By JOHN DUNMORE LANG, D.D., A.M., 

SENIOR MINISTER OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, AND MEMBER OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 
OF NEW SOUTH WALES J HONORARY VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE AFRICAN INSTITUTE 
OF FRANCE, AND HONORARY MEMBER OF THE LITERARY INSTITUTE 
OF OLINDA IN THE BRAZILS. 




LONDON: 
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, 

PATERNOSTER ROW. 



MDCCCXLVII. 



EDINBURGH : PRINTED BY T. CONSTABLE, 
PRINTER TO HER MA JEST V. 



o 



CONTENTS. 



PAC-E 



Introduction, . . . • . . -1 
Chapter I. — Geographical Extent and Boundaries — Pro- 
gressive Discovery of the Coast Line — Physical Charac- 
teristics — Mountains and Rivers — With the facilities 

presented for internal communication, . . 6 

Chapter II. — History and Progress of the Settlement, . 23 
Chapter III. — Melbourne and the Surrounding Country, 

or the District of Bourke, . . . . .67 

Chapter IV. — Geelong and its Vicinity, . . .103 

Chapter V. — The Western Plains and the Lakes, . . 120 

Chapter VI. — Portland Bay and the Road to Melbourne, . 183 

Chapter VII.— Western Port and Gippsland, . . 214 
Chapter VIII. — The Northern Districts, and the Overland 

Route from Sydney to Melbourne, . . . 231 
Chapter IX. — Capabilities of Phiilipsland for immediate 

and extensive Emigration, .... 297 

Chapter X. — The Squatting System, . . . 344 

Chapter XI. — The Separation Question, . . . 362 
Chapter XII. — Prospects for Religion and Education in 

Phiilipsland, . . . . . .413 

Appendix A., Meteorological Journal, . . . 427 

Appendix B., List of Squatters, . . . . 439 

Appendix C, Civil Establishment and Expenditure, . 446 



DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER. 

Sketch Map of Phillipsland to front Title page. 
Maps of Gippsland and the Western Plains and Lakes, at the close 
of the volume. 

Sketch of Government Offices and Signal Station, to front page 75. 

Sketch of Union Bank, to front page 76. 

Sketch of Hobson's Bay, to front page 103. 

Sketch of Native weapons of war, &c, to front page 134. 



ERRATUM. 

In page 136, for " one of 100 white men, who were killed by the 
natives," read " one of two white men." 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 

Just Published, in one vol. 16mo, hound in Cloth, with Maps 
and Illustrations, Price 7s. 6d., 

COOKSLAND, 

In North-Eastern Australia, the future Cotton-Field of 
Great Britain ; its Characteristics and Capabilities for Euro- 
pean Colonization. With a Disquisition on the Origin, Manners, 
and Customs of the Aborigines. 



Preparing for Publication, 

An Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales, 
both as a Penal Settlement, and as a British Colony. Third 
Edition : bringing down the History of the Colony to the close 
of the Administration of Sir George Gipps, in August 1846. 
Two vols. 16mo. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The vast territory hitherto comprehended under the 
general designation of the Colony of New South 
Wales, has evidently been designed by the great 
Author of Nature to form three separate and independ- 
ent Colonies or States. 

The first of these — known for the last few years as 
the Middle District, or New South Wales Proper — 
extends from Cape Howe, the south-eastern extremity 
of the land, to the Solitary Isles, or the 30th parallel of 
South latitude. The second — known as the Northern 
or Moreton Bay District — extends from the 30th 
parallel of South latitude to the Tropic of Capri- 
corn. And the third — known as the Southern or Port 
Phillip District — extends from Cape Howe to the 141st 
meridian of East longitude, which forms the present 
Parliamentary boundary, to the eastward, of the Colony 
of South Australia. 

Each of these divisions of the present unwieldy Co- 
lony possesses a coast line of about 500 miles ; that of 
the Middle and Northern Districts being towards the 
Southern Pacific, and that of the Southern or Port 
Phillip District towards Bass' Straits and the Great 
Southern Ocean. They have each a sufficient extent 
of available territory for the settlement of a numerous 
population and the establishment and maintenance of 
a respectable Colonial Government ; and they have 
each also a magnificent harbour for foreign commerce, 

A 



2 



INTRODUCTION. 



conveniently situated at nearly an equal distance from 
the opposite extremities of their respective coast lines ; 
the harbour of Port Jackson or Sydney being the great 
emporium for foreign commerce for the Middle Dis- 
trict or New South Wales Proper, that of Moreton 
Bay for the Northern District, and that of Port Phil- 
lip for the Southern. 

The boundaries of the great Colony of New South 
Wales, either towards the neighbouring Colony of 
South Australia to the westward, or towards the More- 
ton Bay country to the northward, have not yet been de- 
finitively fixed ; for it is not surely too much to assume 
that the present Parliamentary boundaries of the 141st 
meridian of East longitude, as the common boundary of 
the Colonies of New South Wales and South Australia, 
and of the 26th parallel of South latitude, as the bound- 
ary of New South Wales to the northward — evincing, as 
these boundaries do, the want of everything like reason 
and common sense, as well as an utter disregard for 
the convenience and comfort of the future inhabitants 
of these extensive regions — were merely intended to 
serve a temporary purpose, till the country should be 
fully explored, and its great natural features ascer- 
tained, and the proper boundaries, for the great con- 
terminous British communities of which it is evidently 
destined to become the local habitation, fixed and de- 
termined. 

Neither has the permanent boundary between the 
Middle District or New South Wales Proper and the 
Southern or Port Phillip District been definitively fixed, 
although the subject is at present under consideration 
by Her Majesty's Government, in consequence of the 
earnest desire of the inhabitants of Port Phillip, ex- 
pressed in a petition to Her Majesty the Queen, from 
the whole of the Representatives of the District in the 



INTRODUCTION. 



3 



present Legislative Council of New South Wales, to be 
erected into a separate and independent Colony. 

The object of the following work is to describe the 
actual condition, and to point out the extraordinary ca- 
pabilities for extensive emigration and colonization of 
the third of the Districts above-mentioned — the Southern 
or Port Phillip District of the great Colony of New 
South Wales. And this District I propose, for the 
reasons following, as well as in accordance with the 
opinion and desire of several of its most intelligent and 
influential inhabitants, to designate Phillip sl and. * 

1. It is expedient and necessary that every separate 
and distinct Colony of the British Empire should have 
a distinctive and appropriate name ; and as the pro- 
vince of Port Phillip must necessarily have this cha- 
racter and standing very soon, if not immediately, it is 
desirable, on many accounts, that it should have such 
a name forthwith. Now, the name proposed is in 
perfect accordance with the genius of our language, as 
well as with common usage in a variety of other pa- 
rallel cases ; as, for example, England, Scotland, Ire- 
land, Holland, Poland, Friesland, Jutland, Iceland, 
Greenland, Lapland, Finland, Newfoundland, Mary- 
land, Yan Dieman's Land, Heligoland. 

2. Port- Phillip is already the distinctive and appro- 
priate name of a magnificent inlet of the ocean, form- 
ing a splendid harbour for commerce for the extensive 
territory in which it is situated ; but it is by no means 



* Sir Thomas Mitchell has named the western part of this 
province, which he discovered and traversed in the year 1836, 
Australia Felix ; but tins is rather a poetical designation than a 
proper name — as when we call Great Britain " the sea-girt isle," 
or " the Queen of the seas ;" and besides, it does not extend to 
the whole province. 



4 



INTRODUCTION", 



a suitable name for that territory itself, being neither 
distinctive nor appropriate, but, on the contrary, likely, 
in such a use of the name, to lead to serious mis- 
takes and confusion. For instance, there are the sepa- 
rate and distinct harbours of Western Port and Port 
Albert to the eastward, and of Port Fairy to the west- 
ward, of the great inlet of Port Phillip ; but to de- 
scribe the locality of any of these ports as being in Port 
Phillip, agreeably to the present nomenclature, is no 
description at all, for it does not inform any person at 
a distance, and not previously acquainted with the lo- 
calities, whether the said port is w T ithin the gulf or inlet 
erf Port Phillip, properly so called, or merely in the ex- 
tensive territory or province, which has hitherto been 
improperly designated by the same name. 

3. Such a name as Port Phillip applied to an exten- 
sive territory argues a poverty of conception discredit- 
able to the intellect of the nation, and especially to that 
o: those upon whom the task of giving proper names to 
the British Colonies more particularly devolves. 

4. The slight change proposed, in allowing the port 
or harbour to retain its proper name of Port Phillip, 
and in giving the name of Phillipsland to the Terri- 
tory or Colony, would remove all ambiguity for the 
future, and would confer precisely the same honour as 
the present designation implies on the highly merito- 
rious officer whose name both the Port and the Terri- 
tory w^ould thenceforth bear. That officer was His 
Excellency Captain Arthur Phillip, E.N., the founder 
and first governor of the Colony of New South Wales. 
This officer, it is well known, carried out the views of 
the Home Government, in forming the first British 
settlement ever formed in the Southern Hemisphere, with 
a decree of self-devotion and moral heroism but rarely 
equalled, and never surpassed. For when, in conse- 



INTRODUCTION. 



5 



quence of an unforeseen and deplorable calamity, of 
which neither the nature nor the extent could be known 
in the Colony — I mean the loss of the Guardian store- 
ship by striking on an iceberg in the Great Southern 
Ocean — the Settlement was for a long time in want of 
everything requisite for the sustenance of human life, 
with a prospect for the future dark and dismal in the 
extreme, and the other superior officers of the Colony 
were unanimously of opinion that the infant settlement 
should be abandoned, Governor Phillip, in the exer- 
cise of the Veto with which he had been wisely in- 
trusted by his Sovereign, refused to sanction the mea- 
sure, and, in order to show that he was not unwilling 
to share the utmost privations to which the Settlement 
might be reduced, not only subjected himself to the 
same ration and allowances as the meanest individual 
in the Colony, but surrendered to the public the whole 
of his own private store. It was, doubtless, in great 
measure to the self-devotion of this gallant officer on 
that trying occasion that Great Britain owes the whole 
of her Australian Colonies at the present day. I trust, 
therefore, the intelligent reader will feel satisfied that 
I have shown sufficient cause why the territory of Port 
Phillip should henceforth be designated Phillips- 
land. 



CHAPTER I. 



GEOGRAPHICAL EXTENT AND BOUNDARIES — PROGRESSIVE DISCOVER Y 

OF THE COAST LINE PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS —MOUNTAINS 

AND RIVERS WITH THE PACILTTIES PRESENTED EOR INTERNAL 

COMMUNICATION. 

Phillipsland, or the Port Phillip District of the 
Colony of New South Wales, extends from Cape 
Howe, the south-eastern extremity of the land, situated 
in 37° 30' south, and 150° 7' east, to the 141° of east 
longitude ; that meridian being its present boundary to 
the westward or towards South Australia. I have 
already observed that the northern boundary has not 
yet been definitively fixed ; but in a dispatch of the 
Right Hon. Lord John Russell, who was then Secre- 
tary of State for the Colonies, addressed to the late 
Governor of New South Wales, of date 31st May 
1840, as well as in the Royal Instructions under the 
Sign Manual, of date 23d May 1840, the southern 
boundary of the counties of St. Vincent and Murray, 
and from the latter of these counties the rivers Mur- 
rumbidgee and Murray were proposed as the future 
boundary between New South Wales and Port Phillip.* 



* Extract of Dispatch from the Right Honourable Lord John 
Russell to Goxernor Sir George Gipps,of date Downing Street, Slst 
May 1840. 

These two districts (the Southern and the Middle, or Sydney 
District) are to be divided by the boundaries of the two south- 
ernmost counties of New South Wales, as proclaimed by the Go- 
vernor on the 14th of October 1829, and, from the limits of these 
two counties, by the whole course of the River Murrumbidgee 
and the Murray, until it meets the eastern boundary of South 
Australia, which, of course, will constitute the limit to the 
westward both of the Sydney and of the Port Phillip District. 



GEOGRAPHICAL EXTENT AND BOUNDARIES. 7 

Against this boundary, however, the late Legislative 
Council of New South Wales very properly protested ; 
for as it struck the Pacific at the Mooruyia River, in 
latitude 36° south, it would have cut off from that Co- 
lony ninety miles of the east coast, the harbour of Two- 
fold Bay and the extensive grazing district of Maneroo 
Plains, to the eastward of the Snowy Mountains or 
Australian Alps — all of which are intimately connected 
with New South Wales, and in no way connected with 
Port Phillip. But the boundary proposed by the Coun- 
cil, viz. a line drawn from Cape Howe to the nearest 
sources of the Hume River, and along that river till it 
joins the Murrumbidgee and becomes the Murray, 
would have been equally unjust to Port Phillip ; as the 
Hume River, for a considerable part of its course, ap- 
proaches within 150 miles of the town of Melbourne, 
the capital of that province, where it is at least 500 
miles from Sydney, the capital of New South Wales. 
In these circumstances, the only equitable boundary 



Seeing how little the general direction of the Murrumbidgee, 
after leaving the boundary of the original settlements of New- 
South Wales, varies from an east and west course, it has appear- 
ed to me more convenient to choose this natural and well-defined 
boundary, than to adopt a parallel of latitude. 

Extract from Copy of Instructions, under the Royal Sign 31a- 
nuaVand Signet, addressed to Sir George Gipps, Governor of New 
South Wales, dated 23d May 1840. 

Whereas we have deemed it expedient to revoke the said in- 
structions of the 10th day of October 1837, so far as the same 
are hereinbefore recited, in respect of all lands situate within 
our said territory of New South Wales, lying to the southward of 
a boundary hereinafter more particularly described ; now, there- 
fore, the said instructions are so far revoked accordingly. 

And it is our pleasure, that all lands lying to the southward of 
the said boundary, hereinafter more particularly described, shall 
henceforward be known by the name of the Port Phillip District 
of our said territory of New South Wales. 

And we do further declare our will and pleasure to be, that the 
before- mentioned boundary shall be the southern boundary of the 
county of Saint Vincent, and the southern and south-western 
boundary of the county of Murray, as far as the River Murrum- 
bidgee and the River Murray, until the same reaches the eastern 
boundary of our province of South Australia. 



8 



PHILLIPSLANB. 



that can be suggested is the one proposed by the Mayor 
and Town Council of Melbourne, viz. a line drawn 
from Cape Howe to the summit of Mount Kosciuszko, 
the highest peak of the Snowy Mountains or Australian 
Alps, from thence to the nearest sources of the Tumut 
or Doomut River, and along that river till it falls into 
the Murrumbidgee, near the western boundary of the 
county of Murray, and from thence along the Murrum- 
bidgee andtheMurray, asproposedbyLord John Russell 
and the Eoyal Instructions of 1 840 . This boundary would 
preserve to the Colony of New South Wales the whole 
eastern coast of the Pacific to Cape Howe, while it 
would establish, as a permanent boundary between that 
Colony and Phillipsland, the River Murrumbidgee from 
the point where it deflects to the westward at a part of 
its course nearly equidistant from the two Colonial ca- 
pitals. Besides, it would render the Territory of Phil- 
lipsland a regular parallelogram or oblong of nearly 
the same breadth, throughout its whole extent. 

There is another suggestion, in regard to the bound- 
ary line of Port Phillip, which I believe was originally 
made by his Honour, the Superintendent of that Dis- 
trict, and which deserves the serious consideration of 
Her Majesty's Government, especially in these days in 
which there has already been so much ado about 
boundary lines. The 141st degree of east longitude, 
assigned by Act of Parliament, has proved a most un- 
suitable and inconvenient boundaiy between Port 
Phillip and South Australia ; for as there is no promi- 
nent natural feature of the country coincident with that 
meridian, it has become exceedingly difficult, or rather 
quite impracticable, to ascertain whether certain squat- 
ters, who have flocks and herds depasturing in that vi- 
cinity, are to be considered as in Port Phillip or in 
South Australia, or whether certain crimes and mis- 
demeanours, of which the law ought to take immediate 
cognizance, have been committed in the one Colony or 
in the other. In short, from the want of a natural 
boundary, which could not be mistaken, the revenue 
in both Colonies has been perhaps unintentionally de? 



GEOGRAPHICAL EXTENT AND BOUNDARIES. 9 

frauded on the one hand, and the ends of justice de- 
feated on the other. Besides, the whole of the country 
intervening between the Murray River and the ocean, 
in the lower part of its course, with the exception of a 
narrow belt of land towards Port Phillip, is an arid 
desert ; the necessary consequence of which must be 
that the future inhabitants of that narrow belt of land, 
although nominally and politically in South Australia, 
will have all their social and commercial relations with 
the inhabitants of Port Phillip, from whom they will 
be separated by a mere imaginary line, and none what- 
ever with their fellow-colonists of South Australia be- 
yond the desert of the Murray. 

In these circumstances, his Honour, the Superin- 
tendent of Port Phillip, has recommended that the 
Murray River should be continued as the boundary of 
Port Phillip to the Lake Alexandrina and the ocean, 
and that the colony of South Australia should be com- 
pensated for the loss of whatever available territory 
it may sustain in that direction in some other quar- 
ter. In the propriety of this recommendation I en- 
tirely concur ; and as Sir Thomas Mitchell has recently 
discovered an extensive tract of valuable pasture-land 
to the westward of the River Darling, but within the 
present limits of New South Wales, it would be quite 
practicable to give the colony of South Australia a suf- 
ficient extent of available land in that direction, to 
compensate for the loss of territory to the eastward of 
the Murray, without materially injuring the colony of 
New South Wales. For as the Murray is a navigable 
river, for at least several hundred miles in the lower 
part of its course, and will doubtless eventually prove 
highly valuable for steam-navigation to the colony of 
South Australia, while it can never be of any value 
in that way either to Port Phillip or to New South 
W ales, the new country discovered by Sir Thomas 
Mitchell would not only be nearer Adelaide than 
Sydney, but much more easily accessible from the 
South Australian capital. 

In regard to the extent of territory which South 



10 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



Australia would have to surrender to Port Phillip, in 
order to have a permanent natural boundary, as well as 
a large tract of sterile country, between the available 
lands of both colonies, it does not exceed, at the very 
utmost, 13,000 square miles ; of which, as I have al- 
ready observed, only a very small portion, towards 
Port Phillip, is available for the purposes of man. For 
as the Murray crosses the present boundary in latitude 
34° south, and pursues a westerly course to 138° 40' 
east, from whence its future course is nearly due south 
to Encounter Bay and the ocean, while the coast line 
from Cape Northumberland in latitude 38° 2' south, and 
longitude 140° 37' east, (that is, twenty-three miles to 
the westward of the present boundary,) to the mouth of 
the Murray is nearly N.N.W., the extent of land proposed 
to be transferred from the one colony to the other is in 
reality much smaller than would at first sight be sup- 
posed. In short, it cannot be believed that if Her Ma- 
jesty's Government had been at all aware of the nature 
of the country, any other boundary would have been 
assigned to South Australia than the Murray River in 
the lower part of its course. 

Supposing, then, that the future boundary of Phil- 
lipsland should, on the one hand, be the coast line from 
Cape Howe to the mouth of the Murray, and on the 
other, a line drawn from Cape Howe to Mount Kos- 
ciuszko, and continued to the nearest sources of the Tu- 
mut River, and along that river till it falls into the 
Murrumbidgee, and from thence along the latter river 
and the Murray to the Lake Alexandrina and the South- 
ern Ocean at Encounter Bay, the space included within 
these limits would comprise an area of upwards of 
130,000 square miles, that is, an area at least equal to 
the whole superficial extent of Great Britain, and Ire- 
land, and the island of Van Diem an 's Land.* 

Square Miles. 

* The superficial extent of England and Wales is 57,680 
Do. Scotland, . . 27,794 

Do. Ireland, . . 27,457 



Total area of Great Britain and Ireland, 



112,931 



DISCOVERY OF THE COAST LI>"E. 



11 



The eastern part of the coast line of Phillipsland 
was discovered so early as the year 1797. by Mr. Bass, 
a surgeon in the Eoyal Xavy, who was then on duty 
in the Colony of New South Wales, and who also dis- 
covered at the same time the Straits that bear his 
name, separating the mainland of Australia from the 
island of Yan Dieman's Land. Mr. Bass — whose irre- 
pressible ardour and superior ability in the cause of 
geographical discovery were fully appreciated and 
seconded to the utmost of his ability by Captain (after- 
wards Admiral) Hunter, who was then Governor of 
Xew South Wales — was furnished with a whale boat, 
a crew of six volunteers, and six weeks' provisions ; 
and, with this meagre equipment, he discovered Shoal 
Haven and Twofold Bay on the Pacific, doubled Cape 
Howe, Earn Head, and Wilson's Promontory, the 
southern extremity of the Australian land, and enter- 
ing Western Port, which he also discovered, and in 
which he remained thirteen days, returned in safety 
to Port Jackson. " A voyage," observes Captain 
Flinders, in reference to this extraordinary expedition, 
" expressly undertaken for discovery in an open boat, 
and in which 600 miles of coast, mostly in a boisterous 
climate, was explored, has not perhaps its equal in the 
annals of maritime history. The public will award to 
its high-spirited and able conductor — alas ! now no 
more — an honourable place in the list of those whose 
ardour stands most conspicuous for the promotion of 
useful knowledge." * 

The southern coast to the westward, from 140° 10' 
E., about forty miles within the present limits of the 
Colony of South Australia, to Cape Schank, in 144° 
50' E. at the western entrance of Western Port, was 



As the island of Van Dieman's Land is considerably smaller 
than Ireland, its superficial extent is in all probability not more 
than from 18 ; 000 to 20,000 square miles. The superficial extent 
of the whole kingdom of Holland does not exceed 9400 square 
miles. 

* Flinders' Voyages of Di^overy to the Terra Ausiralis. In- 
troduction. Vol. i. 5 p. 120. 



12 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



discovered, in the year 1800, by Capt. James Grant, 
R.N., in the brig Lady Nelson, on her voyage out 
from England to Port Jackson. As Captain Grant, 
however, had left a bight on the coast unexplored, to 
the westward of Cape Schank, Captain King, R.X., 
who had in the meantime succeeded Captain Hunter 
as Governor of New South Wales, dispatched Lieuten- 
ant John Murray, R.N., who succeeded Captain Grant 
in the command of the Lady Nelson, to examine this 
bight ; and the result of that expedition was the dis- 
covery of the splendid inlet of Port Phillip by Lieu- 
tenant Murray, in the month of January 1802. It is 
customary on such occasions, for a subaltern officer 
making an important discovery, to leave the honour of 
giving a name to it to his superior officer ; and it is 
highly creditable to Governor King that he took ad- 
vantage of the favourable opportunity which was thus 
afforded him of testifying his own honourable feelings, 
by naming this magnificent inlet after his former com- 
mander, Governor Phillip, to whose favour and patron- 
age he had been mainly indebted for his advancement 
in the service. Lieutenant Murray was a Scotchman, 
from Edinburgh, and in honour of his native city he 
named a bluff mountain near the entrance of the 
Port, of upwards of a thousand feet in height, Arthur 's 
Seat, from its supposed resemblance to that striking 
feature in the picturesque scenery of the Scottish 
metropolis.* About ten weeks after its discovery by 
Lieutenant Murray, Port Phillip was visited by Cap- 
tain Flinders, in the course of his outward voyage 



* " The southern shore of this noble harbour is bold high 
land in general, and not clothed, as all the land of Western Port 
is, with thick brush, but with stout trees of various kinds, and 
in some places falls nothing short, in beauty and appearance, of 
Greenwich Park. Away to the eastward, at the distance of 
about twenty miles, the land is mountainous. There is one very 
high mountain in particular, which, in the meantime, I named 
Arthur's Seat, from its resemblance to a mountain of that name 
a few miles from Edinburgh." — Extract of Lieutenant Murray's 
Report to Governor King. 



DISCOVERY OF THE COAST LINE. 



13 



from England in the discovery ship Investigator, who 6b 
serves respecting it, that " on the one hand it is capable 
of receiving and sheltering a larger fleet of ships than 
ever jet went to sea ; whilst on the other, the entrance, 
in its whole width, is scarcely two miles, and nearly 
half of it is occupied by the rocks lying off Point 
Xepean, and by shoals on the opposite side." * 

As there is reason to believe that the recommenda- 
tion of His Honour, the Superintendent of Port Phillip, 
that the boundary of that province should be extended 
to the mouth of the Murray Paver in Encounter Bay, 
will meet with the consideration and attention it de- 
serves, it may not be out of place to add. that the 
discovery of the rest of the coast line, to the North. 
North-westward, was effected by a distinguished 
French navigator in the year 1802. On the 9th of 
April of that year. Captain, afterwards Admiral, Bau- 
din, of the French discovery ship Geographe, and 
Captain Flinders, of the Brixish discovery ship Inves- 
tigator, spoke each other in lat. 35° 40' S., and long, 
138 Q 58' E. — the former from Van Dieman's Land, 
where he had been examining the northern and south- 
ern coasts of that island, which Captain Flinders and 
Mr. Bass had circumnavigated in the year 1798, and 
the latter from the discovery and survey of the entire 
line of coast extending from Nayts' Land to Cape Jer- 
vis and Encounter Bay. Captain Flinders communi- 
cated to Captain Baudin the principal discoveries he had 
made to the westward, and particularly those of Spen- 
cer's and St. Vincent's Gulfs, and Kangaroo Island. 
Captain Baudin, however, named the whole of this land 
Terre Napoleon ; the two Galfs being named respec- 
tively Golfe Bonaparte and Golfe Josephine, and Kan- 
garoo Island UIsU Decre's. But the real Terre 
Napoleon, that is, the full extent of the original dis- 
coveries of Captain Baudin, reaches from 138° 58' E., 
the western extremity of Encounter Bay, to Cape 



* i lingers, uhi si p, a i. "2 1 8. 



14 



PHILLIPSL AND. 



Buffon in 140° 10' E., comprising only about fifty 
leagues of coast ; the land to the westward having been 
previously seen and surveyed by Captain Flinders, 
and that to the eastward by Captain Grant. 

Although the most remarkable feature in the physi- 
cal character of Phillipsland is the great extent of 
comparatively level country which it comprises, it is 
nevertheless traversed in various directions by moun- 
tain chains and ridges, of various extent and of con- 
siderable elevation. Numerous detached hills also, of 
from 500 to 1500 feet in perpendicular height, are 
scattered over the country in all directions, which 
serve to diversify its general aspect, and especially to 
relieve the monotony of the plains. The same agree- 
able effect results from a number of picturesque lakes 
that are scattered over the level portions of the coun- 
try, and that tend greatly to enliven the scenery ; for 
although there are some of these lakes that are by no 
means particularly interesting, there are others emi- 
nently so, and such as, in Europe, would vie with 
some of the celebrated lakes of Scotland, Switzerland, 
and Italy. 

The principal chain of mountains in Phillipsland is 
the great Warragong Chain, called also the Snowy 
Mountains or Australian Alps. Of this mountain 
chain, which divides Phillipsland from New South 
Wales, to the north eastward, Mount Kosciuszko, which, 
according to Count Strzelecki, attains an elevation of 
6500 feet, is one of the highest peaks. For a great 
portion of the year these mountains are covered with 
snow, which indeed never disappears from the higher 
peaks ; and in their numerous and extensive ramifica- 
tions most of the rivers of Phillipsland take their rise, 
The Snowy Mountains are merely the southern portion 
of that extensive chain which traverses the Australian 
continent from north to south — like the Andes of South 
America — at a comparatively small distance from the 
eastern coast. To the southward they terminate in a 
bold headland, running out into Bass' Straits, called 
Wilson's Promontory, which, according to the graphic 



MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS. 



15 



description of Flinders, " is a lofty mass of hard 
granite, of about twenty miles long, by from six to 
fourteen in breadth. The soil upon it is shallow and 
barren, though the brushwood, dwarf gum-trees, and 
some smaller vegetation, which mostly covers the rocks, 
give it a deceitful appearance to the eye of a distant 
observer." * The Snowy Mountains cover an area of 
7000 square miles. 

The next considerable range of mountains is the 
Mount Macedon Range — so called by Sir Thomas 
Mitchell, because Philip was king of Macedon, and 
Mount Macedon, a syenitic mountain, is one of the 
principal mountains of Phillipsland. The range com- 
mences about thirty-five miles N.N.W. of Melbourne, 
and traverses nearly a degree of latitude, first in a 
westerly and then in a northerly direction. 

About twenty-five miles to the westward of this 
range there is a third, called the Bunninyong or Bris- 
bane Eange, running north and south, and traversing 
nearly a degree of latitude. Mount Bunninyong, its 
southern termination, is 1570 feet in perpendicular 
height. This mountain, which is somewhat detached 
from the range, is of volcanic origin, but the basis of 
the rest of the range is schist us. 

About fifty miles to the westward of the Bunninyong 
Range is another of a granitic base, called by Sir 
Thomas Mitchell the Pyrenees, terminating to the 
southward in Mount Cole, a lofty mass of granite. 
The course of the Pyrenees is north-westerly. 

From thirty to forty miles to the westward of the 
Pyrenees is another range, called by Sir Thomas 
Mitchell the Grampians, terminating to the southward 
in Mount Sturgeon, a conspicuous mass of granite, 
rising to the height of 1070 feet above the level of the 
plain, from which it springs like a perpendicular rock 
in the midst of the ocean. Mount Abrupt, immedi- 
ately to the north-eastward of Mount Sturgeon, is 1700 
feet in perpendicular height ; but Mount William, at 



* Flinders' Voyages, &c, I. Introduction. P. 115. 



16 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



the eastern extremity of this range. where it deflects to 
the north-westward, is not less than 4500 feet high. 
The course of the Grampians to Mount William is 
north-easterly, and the range traverses nearly a degree 
of latitude. 

To the northward of Portland Bay. near the present 
boundary of the province, there is a range, neither oi 
great extent nor of great elevation, called the Rifle 
Range ; and along the coast, to the eastward of Cape 
Otway. there is a lofty range, called the Marrack Hills, 
of which there is as yet comparatively little known, 
from the impenetrable character of its exuberant vege- 
tation. *• The whole of this land." says Captain 
Flinders. " is high ; the elevation of the uppermost 
parts being not less than 2000 feet. The rising hills 
are covered with wood of a deep green foliage, and 
without any vacant spaces of rock or sand ; so that I 
judged this part cf the coast to exceed in fertility all 
that had yet fallen under observation/' * 

These mountain ranges, together with the numerous 
detached hills of various elevation, scattered over the 
extensive plains of Phillipsland. ensure a degree of 
humidity which is not experienced in many other parts 
of Australia, and give rise to a considerable number of 
important and never-failing streams. Of these, as I 
have already observed, the greater number and the 
more important originate in the Snowy Mountains. 

To the eastward of these mountains there is an ele- 
vated tract of table-land called Maueroo Plains, forming 
a square of nearly 100 miles on each side, and of from 
3000 to 4000 feet above the level of the sea. These 
plains are traversed, towards the mountains in which it 
rises, by the Snowy River, which pursues a southerly 
course, and dashing from precipice to precipice, and from 
rock to rock, forming in its rapid descent the most 
splendid waterfalls, empties itself into the Southern 
Ocean on the Long Beach, a portion of the coast ex- 



* Flinders, ubi supra. Introduction, 202. 



MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS. 



17 



tending from Cape Howe towards Wilson's Promontory, 
which, to the discredit of British navigation, or rather 
of the " Soldier-officers" who have had the direction 
of affairs in New South Wales for the last forty years, 
is still unsurveyed. The latest charts, published by Mr. 
Arrowsmith, modestly inform us, indeed, that the Long 
Beach, as well as the high land behind it, was dis- 
covered by Mr. George Bass in the year 1798 ; but it 
seems half a century must elapse before the discovery, 
effected with such slender means by that intrepid 
navigator, can be followed up with a Government 
survey of this portion of the coast, although hundreds 
of vessels are now sailing along the land — to which, of 
course, they all endeavour (to use the appropriate 
nautical phrase) to give a wide berth, merely because 
they are totally ignorant of its character. But with 
such wisdom has the British Colonial world been 
hitherto governed ! 

From the south-eastern flanks of the Snowy Moun- 
tains a variety of minor streams descend with a rapid 
course into a tract of low country, to the westward of 
the Long Beach, called Gippsland, of limited extent 
but of the highest capabilities. These streams discharge 
their waters into several beautiful lakes, which, although 
they have no practicable outlet to the ocean, will never- 
theless afford a considerable extent of inland naviga- 
tion, when the population becomes sufficient to require it. 

The Yarra-Yarra River, on the banks of which the 
town of Melbourne, the capital of the province, is situ- 
ated, rises in one of the south-western spurs or branches 
of the Snowy Mountains. It is a beautiful river, and 
its banks are in the highest degree picturesque and 
romantic. At various distances from Melbourne, to- 
wards its source, it receives several creeks or tributa- 
ries, and it is navigable up to the town for steamboats 
and other vessels of a light draught of water, by a tor- 
tuous course of seven miles from Hobson's Bay, the 
northern extremity of Port Phillip. 

The Murrumbidgee River rises on the north-eastern 
flanks of the Snowy Mountains, and for seventy miles, 

B 



18 



PHILLIP SLANI>, 



as the crow flies, pursues a north-westerly course to the 
settlement of Yass, in New South Wales, where it re- 
ceives the Yass River It then takes a south-westerly 
course for other fifty miles to Gundagai, the place 
where the present route from Sydney to Melbourne 
crosses the river. A few miles above Gundagai, it re- 
ceives the Tumut River, which descends by a short 
and rapid course from the north-western ridges of the 
mountains ; and from thence it pursues a due westerly 
course for three hundred miles, till it falls into the 
Hume and forms the Murray. The Murrumbidgee 
receives the Tumut nearly at right angles to its course ; 
and as the former river has reached its actual level at 
the point of junction — a level of not more than 100 
feet above the level of the sea — by a winding course of 
at least two hundred miles, during which its waters 
have been exposed to the rays of an Australian sun, 
while the latter descends from the lofty mountains 
through a series of dark ravines, almost as direct as a 
miner into a coal pit, there is the utmost difference in 
the temperature of the two streams — insomuch that a 
person standing at the point of junction and placing his 
right hand in the one river and his left in the other, 
will feel the waters of the Murrumbidgee tepid and 
agreeable, while he will scarcely be able to bear the 
icy coldness of the Tumut. 

The Hume River, the Ovens, and the Goulburn, all 
issue from the western gorges of this vast conglo- 
meration of mountains, and as they all pursue a north- 
westerly course, with a greater or lesser inclination 
to the north, they all successively unite their waters, 
and flow in one great stream towards the point of 
junction with the Murrumbidgee. From that point, 
where it takes the name of the Murray, the river pur- 
sues a north-westerly course till it crosses the present 
western boundary of Phillipslancl, in the parallel of 
34° south, from which it is suddenly deflected towards 
the south, in the meridian of 139° 40' east, maintain- 
ing thenceforth a southerly course till it falls into the 
Lake Alexandrina and the ocean. 



MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS. 



14 



The Goulburn, at the crossing-place on the S} T dney 
road, is fifty-six miles from Melbourne, and its junc- 
tion with the Hume takes place about 100 miles farther 
down the river. The Ovens is 170 miles from Mel- 
bourne at the crossing-place, and it joins the Hume 
fifty miles farther down. The crossing-place of the 
Hume is about 220 miles from Melbourne ; and the dis- 
tance of the Murrumbidgee, where the Sydney road 
strikes that river, is 300 miles, or nearly half-way be- 
tween Sydney and Melbourne. 

But the Hume River receives various other tributa- 
ries before it forms a junction with the Murrumbidgee ; 
as, for instance, the River Campaspe, which rises in 
the Mount Macedon and Mount Bunninyong Ranges^ 
and the River Loddon, which rises on the western side 
of the latter range, and waters a large extent of fine 
pastoral country on its north ward course to the Hume. 

The southern ridges of the Pyrenees give rise to 
the Hopkins River, which, although it does not possess 
so classical a name as certain other of Sir Thomas 
Mitchell's discoveries, is nevertheless a valuable stream 
to the Australian grazier and agriculturist, as it pur- 
sues a southerly course for upwards of sixty miles 
through a rich tract of country, and falls into the Great 
Southern Ocean at Warnambool or Lady Bay, a re- 
cently-discovered harbour about sixty miles to the west- 
ward of Cape Otway. 

The principal streams to which the Grampians give 
rise are the Glenelg River, and its main tributary the 
TTannon. The Glenelg issues from a gorge on the 
western slope of the northern Grampians, and pursues 
a due westerly course for about fifty miles, to within 
twenty-five miles of the western boundary of Phillips- 
land. It then takes a southerly course, and crossing 
the boundary enters the territory of South Australia 
a few miles from the ocean. After thus forming a 
comfortable Alsatia, or place of refuge for all evil doers 
from Phillipsland, in another colony where the officers 
of justice cannot follow them, without even requiring 
them to cross the river, it again crosses the boundary 



20 



PHILLIPSLAND, 



into Phillipsland, and empties itself into the ocean a 
mile or two to the eastward of the boundary line, 
thereby performing the same acceptable service for all 
the villains of South Australia — for there are such 
characters it seems even in that colony, notwithstanding 
its unexceptionable origin — by forming another Alsatia 
for them, within the territory of Phillipsland. 

The TTannon rises on the eastern slope of the southern 
Grampians, the base of which it skirts till it sweeps 
round Mount Sturgeon, from whence it pursues a due 
westerly course of from sixty to seventy miles, through 
a splendid country, equally adapted for pasture and 
for agriculture, till it falls into the Glenelg, about forty 
miles inland from the mouth of the latter river. 

The northern Grampians originate a third river, 
called the Wimmera, besides two or three other minor 
streams, which pursue a northerly course to the Murray. 

The Rifle Range also originates several minor streams, 
some of which fall into Portland Bay, while others 
iind their way into the Glenelg ; and the River Bar- 
won, which rises in the Marrack Hills near Cape Otway, 
and waters, in its circuitous course of upwards of 100 
miles, a splendid tract of country, empties itself by a 
series of beautiful picturesque lakes, the resort of innu- 
merable black swans, into the Southern Ocean, a few 
miles to the westward of the entrance of Port Phillip. 

Besides these, there are a number of minor streams 
and torrents that traverse the country in various direc- 
tions, some of which will be mentioned in the sequel. 
* This enumeration, however, will be sufficient to show 
that Phillipsland is by no means — as has sometimes 
been alleged by disappointed emigrants, whose failure 
is to be ascribed either to their own mismanagement, 
or to circumstances altogether independent both of the 
soil and climate — a badly watered country. There arc, 
doubtless, no navigable rivers in the w r hole territory, 
lor the Glenelg River has no practicable outlet ; and, 
although according to Captain Sturt, the Hume is 
navigable below the crossing-place, while the Murray 
is navigable for its whole course, the mouth of the latter 



MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS. 



21 



river is also hermetically sealed against any possibility 
of ingress from the ocean. In such circumstances, I can- 
not conceive that the navigation either of the Hume or 
of the Murray, traversing, as the latter of these rivers 
does, a large extent of country of hopeless sterility, can 
ever be of any utility to the future inhabitants of 
Phillipsland. But the world has happily outgrown the 
necessity for internal communication by means of rivers. 
From the peculiarly level character of a large extent of 
its surface, and the practicability of approaching on 
that level to the very roots of all its principal moun- 
tain-ranges, there is no part of the British dominions 
so well adapted for the construction of railways as 
Phillipsland ; and as the indigenous timber of the 
country has been pronounced, by competent judges, 
perfectly suited for the construction of these means 
of internal communication without the addition of iron 
rails, there is no part of her Majesty's dominions in 
which they can be made available at so small an ex- 
pense. In short, it cannot be doubted, that if the future 
emigration to that extensive territory should be at all 
adequate to its means of affording a comfortable settle- 
ment for a numerous and industrious population, Phil- 
lipsland will, in a period of time comparatively short* 
be traversed in all directions by cheap wooden railways, 
which will prove conducive, in an incredible degree, to 
the rapid development of its vast resources, and the 
comfort and convenience of its future inhabitants. 

As to water for other purposes, there are extensive 
tracts to the westward, where excellent water can be 
found by digging for it at a few feet from the surface ; 
and in other localities, in which that article of prime 
necessity is at present rather scarce, the gentle undula- 
tions of the land and the numerous torrents, of which 
the channels are dry in summer, afford remarkable fa- 
cilities for ensuring a permanent and abundant supply 
by artificial means at the merest trifie of expense. A 
squatter in the Western District, whose station was 
crossed by a torrent of which the channel was gene- 
rally dry in summer, observing a narrow gorge in its 



22 



PHILLIPSLANIX 



course, threw an embankment across it and dammed: 
up the water after the next rains ; thereby securing, at 
an expense, as I was told by my intelligent informant, 
of not more than five pounds altogether, an abundant 
and permanent supply of excellent w^ater for his esta- 
blishment, and forming an ornamental sheet of water 
of upwards of a mile in length in the immediate vici- 
nity of his premises* 



CHAPTER II 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 

The discovery of the magnificent inlet of Port 
Phillip was not allowed by the British Government of 
the day to remain in abeyance. On the contrary, it 
was determined that it should be turned to immediate 
account ; and, with this view, Lieut. -Colonel Collins, 
of the Royal Marines, w*ho had been Judge- Advocate 
and Secretary of the colony of New South Wales from 
the period of its original formation, was furnished with 
a large body of convicts, and troops direct from Eng- 
land, in the year 1803, to form a subsidiary penal 
settlement, of which he was appointed commandant, in 
that locality. Colonel Collins, however, had a discre- 
tionary power, in the event of his finding it impractic- 
able to form such a settlement on the shores of Port 
Phillip, to transfer his whole establishment to those of 
the Derwent River in Yan Diemen's Land. Colonel 
Collins accordingly arrived in Port Phillip towards the 
close of the year 1803, and proceeded to form a settle- 
ment on the eastern shore of the harbour, near its en- 
trance. The land in that locality, however, is exceed- 
ingly sterile, and fresh water very scanty. In such 
circumstances^ an intelligent officer, invested with the 
extensive powers which Colonel Collins possessed, 
would have deemed it his duty to institute an imme- 
diate and minute examination of the shores of so ex- 
tensive an inlet, to ascertain whether there was any 
part of the surrounding country available for the pur- 
poses of man. But Colonel Collins did nothing of the 
kind ; but resolving at once, and without further in- 
quiry, that in Port Phillip, from Dan to Beersheba. 



24 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



all was barren, he broke up the settlement, re-embarked 
his troops and convicts, and sailed for the Derwent 
River, in Van Diemen's Land, where he landed on the 
19th February 1804. It was perhaps as well, how- 
ever, for the future welfare and advancement of Port 
Phillip, that its superior capabilities for the formation 
of a British settlement were not ascertained on that 
occasion ; for it would otherwise have, long ere now, 
been overrun with convicts, w T hile millions of acres of 
its available territory, which may now form the valu- 
able patrimony of the humbler classes of the mother 
country, in ensuring them a free passage out to a country 
in which their labour can be turned to a beneficial 
account for themselves, would have been recklessly 
given away, by successive governors, to individuals 
who had no other claim to public favour than that of 
abject servility to the powers that were. 

After the sentence of indiscriminate condemnation 
which was thus passed upon it by Colonel Collins, 
Port Phillip was not again heard of, either in New 
South Wales or elsewhere, for twenty years. In the 
year 1824, however, two respectable settlers in the 
county of Argyle ? in New South Wales. Messrs. Hovell 
and Hume — the former a retired shipmaster, and the 
latter an enterprising native of the colony— having 
formed an equipment at their own private expense, 
took their departure from Lake George, in that county, 
to find their way to the Southern Ocean. Getting 
entangled among the northern spurs of the Snowy 
Mountains, after crossing the Murrurubidgee, they were 
obliged to keep considerably farther to the westward 
than they had at first intended, in order to clear that 
extensive chain ; and having accordingly reached an 
open country in the meridian of 148° E., they disco- 
vered a river of upwards of a hundred yards in breadth, 
wdiich they found issuing from the mountains, with a 
rapid westerly current, in latitude 3 6° S., and which Cap- 
tain Hovell named the Hume, in honour of his adven- 
turous fellow-traveller. Passing through a compara- 
tively open country, well watered and abounding in 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 25 

pasture, they discovered and crossed a second river, 
in latitude 36° 40' S., which they named the Ovens, in 
honour of Brigade-Major Ovens, who was then Private 
Secretary to the Governor. This river was consider- 
ably smaller than the Hume, but of equal velocity, and 
its course was north-westward. At length they crossed 
a thirdriver,in latitude 37° S., pursuing a similar course, 
and formed from the junction of various streams issuing 
from the same range of mountains, which they named 
the Goulburn, in honour of Frederick Goulburn, Esq., 
who was then Colonial Secretary of New South Wales. 
The party then stood to the eastward, and, again cross- 
ing the 146th meridian of east longitude, they beheld 
the coast range of hills, and, traversing a beautiful 
open pastoral country, reached the north-east arm of 
Port Phillip, which they mistook for Western Port, on 
the 16th of December 1824. On their return to New 
South Wales, they stood considerably to the westward 
of their outward route, keeping pretty much in the 
line of the present overland route from Melbourne to 
Sydney. 

Some time after the return of this expedition, the 
real importance of the results of which was for a long 
period strangely overlooked, a penal settlement was 
formed at Western Port, during the administration of 
General Darling, of which the charge was intrusted to 
Captain Hovell ; but, like many other ill-considered 
attempts of the kind on all parts of the coast, it was 
speedily abandoned. 

Ten years, however, after the discoveries of Messrs. 
Hume and Hovell, and thirty years after the abandon- 
ment of Port Phillip as a site for a penal settlement 
by Colonel Collins, the amazing increase of stock, and 
the difficulty of obtaining eligible pasture in Van 
Diemen'sLand, induced a few enterprising stockholders 
in that colony to direct their attention to the opposite 
coast; and, accordingly, an enterprising individual, 
Mr. Batman, a native of Parramatta, in New South 
Wales, who had long resided in Van Dieman's Land, 
was deputed to visit Port Phillip, and to report as to 



26 



PH1LLIPSLAND. 



its capabilities for the depasturing of stock ; for there 
were persons still alive in Van Diemen's Land who 
had belonged to the expedition of Colonel Collins in 
1804, and who maintained, in opposition to the verdict 
of that officer, that it was not all barren, and this tradi- 
tionary impression served as a stimulus to the consti- 
tuents of Mr. Batman. 

Mr. Batman's report, as to the capabilities of Port 
Phillip as a grazing country, was in the highest degree 
favourable ; and that report having been subsequently 
confirmed by the testimony of other credible witnesses, 
who were afterwards sent across from Van Diemen's 
Land on his track, the result was as if the whole 
colony of Van Diemen's Land had been suddenly electri- 
fied. I happened to visit that island, on a clerical tour 
from New South Wales, in the months of October and 
November 1835, when the excitement was at its height ; 
and on traversing the island, to and fro, between Ho- 
bart Town and Launceston, at its opposite extremities, 
I found almost every respectable person I met with 
preparing, either individually, or in the person of some 
near relation or confidential agent, to occupy the 
Australian El Dorado. Joint Stock Companies, in- 
cluding the first names in the colony, were formed, 
with designations as various and imposing as those of 
the Railway Companies of later times, for the purchase 
of vast domains, and the depasturing of stock, in Port 
Phillip. For, as the highest legal opinion in the colony 
— although it must be acknowledged that the lawyers 
consulted were both counsel and clients in the case — 
set forth that, as the southern coast of New Holland 
was a waste country, in the occupation of no European 
Power, it was free to be taken possession of by the 
first comers, or by those who could make the best bar- 
gain wath the aborigines — in whom the entire sovereignty 
of the country and the property of the soil were alleged 
to be alike exclusively vested. Tracts of land, as ex- 
tensive as the largest principalities, were forthwith 
purchased from the black natives, on behalf of the 
different Companies concerned, and the stipulated 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 27 

number of blankets, hatchets, and looking-glasses being 
duly paid, regular Deeds of Conveyance, attesting the 
fact, were drawn up, signed, sealed, and delivered, 
with all the usual formalities of law. As these Deeds 
are now part and parcel of the history of the province, 
I subjoin the following copy of one of them — the one 
which Mr. Batman concluded on the part of the 
Company called the Yan Dienien's Land Association — 
not merely as a literary curiosity, but as a singular 
instance of the mental hallucination which an over- 
weening regard for one's own interest will sometimes 
produce even in men of superior standing and intelli- 
gence ; for the supposition that such a transaction as 
the following document records could be sanctioned 
for one moment by the government of any civilized 
country in the present age, is in every respect worthy 
of a lunatic asylum : — 

" Know all persons, that we, three brothers, Jaga- 
jaga, Jagajaga, Jagajaga, being the principal chiefs, 
and also Cooloolock, Bungarie, Yanyan, Moowhip, 
Momarmalar, being the chiefs of a certain native tribe 
called Dutigallar, situated at or near Port Phillip, 
called by us, the above mentioned chiefs, Irausnoo and 
Geelong, being possessed of the tract of land herein 
mentioned, for and in consideration of 20 pairs of 
blankets, 30 knives, 12 tomahawks, 10 looking-glasses, 
12 pairs of scissors, 50 handkerchiefs, 12 red shirts, 4 
flannel jackets, 4 suits of clothes, and 50 pounds of 
flour, delivered to us by John Batman, Esq., do give, 
grant, &c, all that tract of country, about 100,000 
acres, in consideration of the yearly tribute of 50 pairs 
of blankets, 50 knives, 50 tomahawks, 50 pairs of 
scissors, 50 looking-glasses, 20 suits of slops or cloth- 
ing, and 2 tons of flour." 

To this deed were appended the names, or rather 
marks, and seals of the aborigines enumerated in it. 
The same extensive proprietors subsequently alienated 
an additional portion of their territory, to the extent of 
500,000 acres, more or less, for 20 pairs of blankets, 30 
tomahawks, 100 knives, 30 pairs of scissors, 30 



28 



PHILLIP SLAXD. 



looking-glasses, 200 handkerchiefs. 100 lbs. of flour, 
and 6 shirts, with a yearly tribute similar to the pre- 
ceding. 

In making these purchases from the black natives, 
considerable assistance was obtained from an English- 
man of the name of Buckley, (originally a soldier, who 
had been transported for desertion.) whom Mr. Bat- 
man found, on his arrival, among the black natives of 
Port Phillip. He was one of the convicts of Colonel 
Collins' expedition in 1803, and had absconded and 
taken to the bush when the settlement was broken up. 
preferring a life of freedom among the wild natives of 
Port Phillip to one of hard bondage in Van Diemen's 
Land. The natives had received and treated him 
kindly, and he had been naturalized and domiciliated 
among them for thirty years, when his fellow-country- 
men again visited Port Phillip. He was by no means 
an intelligent man. and had never been far from the 
Port in any direction ; but he was of great use to the 
adventurers from Van Diemen's Land, in explaining 
their objects and intentions to the aborigines, and in 
conciliating towards them their friendship and favour. 
He was afterwards rewarded for his services with some 
minor appointment in the convict department of Van 
Diemen's Land. 

The vigour with which the settlement of Port Phillip 
was prosecuted by adventurers from that island may 
be conceived from the fact, that before the close of the 
year 1835. the emigrants from that colony, who were 
regularly settled at Port Phillip, amounted to 50. 
while their stock amounted to 100 head' of cattle and 
1400 sheep ; eight vessels, with passengers and stock 
having, in the meantime, crossed the straits from Van 
Diemen's Land. But. during the following six months, 
or before the close of the month of June 1836. the 
population exceeded 200, and the sheep amounted to 
50,000, thirty-five vessels having arrived during the 
interval from Van Diemen's Land. A regular village 
on the site of the present town of Melbourne had then 
been formed ; fifty acres of land were in cultivation : 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 29 



gardens had been laid out in various localities, and 
the country was occupied for fifty miles from the Port. 
For the next eighteen months, the arrivals, both of 
settlers and stock, from Van Diemen's Land, continued 
at a similar rate.* 

Such proceedings, however, and especially the claim 
to make extensive purchases of land from the black 
natives, within the bounds of his proper jurisdiction, 
could not escape the notice of the Governor of New 
South Wales. t Accordingly, Sir Richard Bourke. 
who then held that office, issued a proclamation, warn- 
ing the Van Diemen's Land Association, and all other 
persons concerned, that no titles to land would be 
recognized by the Government, but such as were de- 
rived from the Crown. In consequence of this pro- 
clamation the Association submitted their case in the 
following form to W. Burge, Esq., M.P., formerly 
Attorney- General of Jamaica, the first authority ot 
the day in all matters of Colonial Law : — 

" Case for Opinion. — The accompanying Report, No. 1, gives 
a detailed account of the occupation by Mr. Batman of certain 
tracts of land situated at the south-western extremity of New 
Holland, and in the vicinity of a port marked upon the English 
charts as Port Phillip. The documents, Nos. 2 and 3, are copies 
of deeds of feoffment in favour of Mr. Batman, executed by the 
Chiefs of the native tribe, living at and contiguous to Port 
Phillip. The document, No. 4, is the copy of a letter addressed 
by the Members of the Association for forming a settlement upon 
the tracts of land in question to the Secretary of State for the 
Colonies, soliciting a confirmation on the part of the Crown, of 
the tracts of land granted by the deeds Nos. 2 and 3. This 



* The importations of cattle and sheep into Port Phillip during 

the four years following were as under, viz. : 

Horned Cattle. Sheep. 
In 1837, . 94 55,208 

... 1838, . 74 9,822 

.= 1839, 135 3 7,567 

... 1840, 244 19,958 

f In the Commission of Governor Phillip, the western limit 

of New South Wales was declared to be the 135th degree of 

east longitude. It therefore included the whole territory of 

Phillipsland. 



30 



PHILLIPSL AND . 



letter has not yet been delivered to the Colonial Secretary. The 
tracts of country in question are within the limits of Australia, 
as defined in the maps, of which the line extends from the Aus- 
tralian Bight to the Gulf of Carpentaria ; but they are situated 
some hundred miles from New South Wales, which is only a 
part of Australia. Port Phillip was named after Governor 
Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales, who formed a 
temporary settlement there, which was immediately abandoned, 
and no act of ownership has since been exercised by the Crown. 
The natives are, as appears by the Report, an intelligent set of 
men, and the grants were obtained upon equitable principles, of 
which the reservation of the tribute is strong evidence, and the 
purport of the deeds was fully comprehended by them. The 
gentlemen composing the Association have possessed themselves 
of the tracts of country in question, and have flocks and other 
property there of the value of at least £30,000. The following 
documents are added as tending to illustrate the present situa- 
tion of the colonists, as well as their views and intentions : — No. 
5. Copy answer returned through the office of the Colonial 
Secretary of Van Diemen's Land to Mr. Batman's Report, 
addressed to the Lieutenant-Governor. No. 6. Map of the ceded 
territory. No. 7. Copy Indenture made by John Batman, 
Charles Swanston, and others, for defining the objects of the 
parties who propose to establish a settlement on the ceded terri- 
tories. No. 8. Copy Conveyance of the ceded territories made 
by Mr. Batman, and relative declaration of trust. Your opinion 
is requested, 1. Whether the grants obtained by the Association 
are valid I 2. Whether the right of soil is, or is not, vested in 
the Crown \ 3. Whether the Crown can legally oust the Asso- 
ciation from their possessions ? 4. What line of conduct or 
stipulations would you advise the Association to pursue and 
make with the British Government ; in particular, ought they to 
offer Government any specific terms, or ought the whole of the 
documents now laid before you to be at once communicated to 
Government, or ought such communication to embrace only part 
of them, and if so, what part I" 

Mr. Burge's Opinion, a document of much general 
interest and of great ability, is as follows : — 

" Opinion. — 1 and 2. I am of opinion, that, as against the 
Crown, the grants obtained by the Association are not valid, and 
that, as between Great Britain and her own subjects, as well as 
the subjects of foreign states, the right to the soil is vested in 
the Crown. It has been a principle adopted by Great Britain, 
as well as by the other European states, in relation to their 
settlements on the continent of America, that the title which 
discovery conferred on the Government, by whose authority or 
by whose subjects the discovery was made, was that of the ulti- 
mate dominion in, and sovereignty over, the soil, even whilst it 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 31 



continued in possession of the aborigines. Vattel, B. ii., c. 18. 
This principle was reconciled with humanity and justice towards 
the aborigines, because the dominion was qualified by allowing 
them to retain, not only the rights of occupancy, but also a re- 
stricted power of alienating those parts of the territory which 
they occupied. It was essential that the power of alienation 
should be restricted. To have allowed them to sell their lands 
to the subjects of a foreign state would have been inconsistent 
with the right of the state, by the title of discovery, to exclude 
all other states from the discovered country. To have allowed 
them to sell to her own subjects would have been inconsistent 
with their relation of subjects. The restriction imposed on their 
power of alienation consisted in the right of pre-emption of these 
lands by that state, and in not permitting its own subjects or 
foreigners to acquire a title by purchase from them without its 
consent. Therein consists the sovereignty of a dominion or right 
to the soil, asserted and exercised by the European Government 
against the aborigines, even whilst it continued in their posses- 
sion. The Commission granted by England to Cabot, the char- 
ter to Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1578, and which was afterwards 
renewed to Sir Walter Raleigh, the charter to Sir Thomas 
Gates and others in 1606, and to the Duke of Lennox and others 
in 1620, the grants to Lord Clarendon in 1 663, and to the Duke of 
York in 1664, recognise the right to take possession on the part 
of the Crown, and to hold in absolute property, notwithstanding 
the occupancy of the natives. The cession of 6 all Nova Scotia 
or Acadia, with its ancient boundaries,' made by France to 
Great Britain by the J 2th Article of the Treaty of Utrecht in 
1703, and the cession of other lands in America, made at the 
peace of 1763, comprised a great extent of territory which was 
in the actual occupation of the Indians. Great Britain, on the 
latter occasion, surrendered to France all her pretensions to the 
country west of the Mississippi, although she was not in posses- 
sion of a foot of land in the district thus ceded. But that which 
Great Britain really surrendered was her sovereignty, or the 
exclusive right of acquiring, and of controlling the acquisition by 
others of lands in the occupation of the Indians. On the cession 
by Spain to France of Florida, and by France to Spain of Loui- 
siana, and on the subsequent retrocession of Louisiana by Spain 
to France, and the subsequent purchase of it by the United 
States from France, these Powers were transferring and receiv- 
ing territories, the principal parts of which were occupied by the 
Indians. The history of American colonization furnishes in- 
stances of purchases of land from the native Indians by indi- 
viduals. The most memorable is the purchase made by William 
Penn. It has, however, been observed by Chief Justice Mar- 
shall, in the case of Johnson p. M-Tntosh, 8 Wheaton's Rep. 570, 
that this purchase was not deemed to have added to the strength 
of his title. Previously to this purchase the lands called Penn- 
sylvania, and which comprised those subsequently purchased by 



32 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



him, had been granted by the Crown to him and his heirs in 
absolute property, by a charter in 1681, and he held a title 
derived from James II. when Duke of York. He was, in fact, 
as a proprietary governor, invested with all the rights of the 
Crown, except those which were specially reserved. Another 
instance is the purchase from the Narraghansett Indians of the 
lands which formed the colonies of Rhode Island and Provi- 
dence. They were made by persons whose religious dissensions 
had driven them from Massachusetts. The state of England at 
this period might account for this transaction having escaped the 
attention of the Government. It is evident, however, that the 
settlers were not satisfied with the title acquired by this pur- 
chase ; for, on the restoration of Charles II., they solicited and 
obtained from the Crown a charter, by which Providence was 
incorporated with Rhode Island. The grant is made to them 
6 of our Island called Rhode Island,' and of the soil as well as the 
powers of Government. The judgment of Lord Hardwicke, in 
the case of Penn t. Lord Baltimore, 1. Ves. 454, is not incon- 
sistent with, but in many respects supports, this view of the 
rights of the Crown and its grantees. Tn all the colonies which 
now constitute the United States, the Crown either granted to 
individuals the right in the soil, although occupied by the In- 
dians, as was the case in most of the proprietary governments, 
or the right was retained by the Crown, or vested in the Colonial 
Government. The United States, at the termination of the 
Revolution, acquired the right to the soil which had been previ- 
ously vested in the Crown, for Great Britain by treaty relin- 
quished all claim 6 to the proprietory and territorial rights of the 
United States.' The validity of titles acquired by purchases 
from the Indians has been on several occasions the subject of 
decision in the courts of the United States. The judgment of 
Chief Justice Marshall, in the case of Johnson r. M'lntosh, con- 
tains the elaborate opinion of the Supreme Court, that the Indian 
title was subordinate to the absolute ultimate title of the Govern- 
ment, and that the purchase made otherwise than with the 
authority of the Government, was not valid. A similar decision 
was given by the same court in the case of Worcester r. the 
State of Georgia, in January 1832. 3 Kent's Com. 382, and the 

case referred to in the note, p. 385 3. I am of opinion that 

the Crown can legally oust the Association from their posses- 
sion. The enterprise manifested by the expedition, the re- 
spectability of the parties engaged in it, and the equitable and 
judicious manner in which they conducted the intercourse with 
the native tribes, and made their purchase, afford a strong ground 
for anticipating that the Crown would, in conformity with its 
practice on other occasions, on a proper application, give its 
sanction to, and confirm the purchase which the Association has 
made. Lord Hardwicke, in the case which has been referred to, 
expressed a very strong opinion, that the possession of persons 
making these settlements ought to receive the fullest protection. 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 33 

There is no ground for considering that the lands comprised in 
this purchase are affected by the Act erecting South Australia 
into a Province, 4 and 5 W. IV., c. 75. They are clearly not 
within the boundaries assigned to the territory, which is the 
subject of the Act, and therefore the Crown is not precluded 
from confirming the purchase. — 4. I am of opinion that the 
Association should make an application to the Government for 
a confirmation of the above purchase, and accompany it with a 
full communication, not only of all the documents now laid before 
me, but of every other circumstance connected with the acquisi- 
tion William Burge, Line. Inn, 16th Jan. 1836." 

In this opinion Mr. Pemberton, one of the ablest 
Counsel at the Chancellor's Bar, and Sir W. Follett, 
late Attorney- General, concurred, in the following 
terms : — 

u We have perused the extremely able and elaborate opinion 
of Mr. Burge, and entirely concur in the conclusions at which he 
has arrived upon each of the queries submitted to us, — Tho. 
Pemberton, W. W. Follett, Jan. 21, 1836." 

These opinions necessarily terminated the existence 
of the Van Diemen's Land Association, and the other 
Companies of a similar kind, formed not for the colo- 
nization, but for the appropriation, of the territory of 
Port Phillip. The members of these Companies, how- 
ever, were subsequently allowed, in consideration of 
their payments to the aborigines, a remission, to the 
extent of £7000, of the purchase-money of whatever 
lands they might choose to purchase in the province 
from the Crown. 

But while I approve entirely of the policy of the Go- 
vernment, in refusing to recognise the extensive pur- 
chases of land which were made from the aborigines 
of New Holland by the Van Diemen's Land Associa- 
tion and the other Companies of the period, in supposed 
defeasance of the rights of the Crown, I think it but 
fair that these Companies should not be deprived of the 
credit to which they are justly entitled, in having been 
the first to afford a practical demonstration of the ex- 
traordinary capabilities of the territory of Phillipsland 
for the settlement of a British Colony. Now it appears 
to me that justice has scarcely been done to these spi- 
rited adventurers in the following passage of Sir Thomas 

c 



34 



PHTLLIPSLANB. 



Mitchell's Account of his subsequent discovery of Aus- 
tralia Felix during the latter half of the year 1836. 
The passage I refer to relates to the country around 
the Grampians — a mere continuation of the splendid 
pastoral country which had been discovered two years 
before, and which was then extensively settling by ad- 
venturers from Yan Diemen's Land. 

" We had at length discovered a country ready for 
the immediate reception of civilized man, and fit to be- 
come eventually one of the great nations of the earth, 
unencumbered with too much wood, yet possessing 
enough for all purposes ; with an exuberant soil under 
a temperate climate ; bounded by the sea coast and 
mighty rivers, and watered abundantly by streams 
from lofty mountains. This highly interesting region 
lay before me with all its features new and untouched 
as they fell from the hand of the Creator ! Of this Eden it 
seemed that I was only the Adam ; and it was indeed a sort 
of paradise to me, permitted thus to be the first to ex- 
plore its mountains and streams— to behold its scenery 
— to investigate its geological character — and, finally, 
by my survey, to develop those natural advantages all 
still unknown to the civilized world, but yet certain to 
become, at no distant date, of vast importance to a new 
people."'* 

Now, how stands the chronology of the case ? Why, 
it is quite obvious, from what I have already stated 
above, that the splendid pastoral and agricultural coun- 
try around Melbourne and Geelong, of which the coun- 
try subsequently discovered by Sir T. Mitchell is merely a 
continuation, was discovered by Mr. Batman in 1834, 
and was actually purchased from the black natives, and 
taken possession of to a vast extent, on account of the 
Yan Diemen's Land Companies, early in 1835. The 
account of the discovery and settlement of this magni- 
ficent tract of country had, in the meantime, attracted 



* Three Expeditions into the Interior of Australia. By Sir 
T. L. Mitchell, Surveyor-General of New South Wales, Vol. ii., 
p. 170. 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 35 



so much notice in Sydney, that his Excellency Sir 
Richard Bourke published his proclamation, asserting 
the rights of the Crown against the alleged purchases 
from the aborigines, so early in the same year that 
the case of Appeal to the Secretary of State by the Van 
Diemen's Land Association had actually gone home to 
England, and the opinions of Counsel been given upon it 
in. the month of January 1836 ; while a brisk trade, of 
which I was an eye-witness, and in which the whole 
colony of Van Diemen's Land took the liveliest interest, 
had been organized previous to the close of the year 
1835, in the export of sheep, cattle, and provisions to 
the El Dorado of Port Phillip. Nay, this discovery 
and settlement of Port Phillip by adventurers from 
Van Diemen's Land, had appeared to the Local Go- 
vernment of the day an event of so much importance 
to the Colony of New South Wales, that, slow as the 
movements of Governments are known to be in such 
matters, Sir Richard Bourke had applied for and re- 
ceived permission from home to form a settlement at 
Port Phillip, and had actually formed that settlement 
in September 1836, before Sir T. Mitchell's return to 
Sydney after his discovery of Australia Felix. For 
Sir Thomas started on his third expedition of disco- 
very, to the Darling and Murray rivers, only in the 
month of March 1836, and did not cross the Murray 
into Phillipsland till the 13th of June of that year. 
Crossing the country to the southward, and discovering 
in the course of his journey the Southern Grampians 
and the splendid tract of country he has called Aus- 
tralia Felix, Sir T. reached Portland Bay, where the 
Messrs. Henty had been established for two years pre- 
vious, on the 29 th of August following, and he only 
reached Sydney on his return on the 3d of November. 

It is quite evident, therefore, that if Sir T. Mitchell 
is to be considered as the Adam of Phillipsland, there 
was a whole Colony of Prae- Adamites there before him ; 
and it is unquestionably to the enterprise and energy 
of these adventurers from Yan Diemen's Land, and 
not to any subsequent discoveries, that the rise and 



36 



PHILLIP SL AND. 



progress of that noble Colony are to be traced. In his 
speech on the subject of the ,; Titles of Land in New 
Zealand." delivered in the old Legislative Council 
of New South Wales on the 9th of July 1840, Sir 
George Gipps observed, with his characteristic heart- 
lessness. that although the Van Diemen's Land Asso- 
ciation had got nothing from the Government at the 
time they made their appeal to the Secretary of State. 
,; he was sorry to say that they had afterwards got 
some £7000 by way of compensation." They were 
well entitled to all they got. and to a great deal more, 
for the splendid service they had rendered their country. 

Shortly after the anomalous proceedings I have de- 
tailed. Sir Richard Bourke was authorized, agreeably 
to his own recommendation, to form a regular settle- 
ment at Port Phillip, as a temporary dependency of 
New South Wales ; and a Government Establishment, 
on a small scale, was accordingly formed at Melbourne 
in the month of September 1836. 

It is proper to observe, however, that in the year 
1834:. about the period of Mr. Batman's first visit to 
Port Phillip, if not previous to that visit, a settlement 
had been actually made at the western extremity of 
Phillipsland. by two enterprising Colonists from Laun- 
eeston. Van Diemen's Land, who had originally emi- 
grated from England to Swan River, but had afterwards 
re-emigrated to the latter Colony. Lhe gentlemen 
I allude to were the Messrs. Henty. who. at the period 
of the discovery of Australia Felix by Sir Thomas 
Mitchell in the month of August 1836. had both a 
whaling and a farming establishment at Portland Bay. 
besides a large quantity of stock, which they had im- 
ported from Van Diemen's Land, depasturing in the 
surrounding interior — having then been upwards of 
two years in that locality. It is evident, therefore, that 
although Port Phillip was thenceforth to be a de- 
pendency of New South TVales, it was. properly speak- 
ing, in the first instance, an offshoot from Van Die- 
men's Land. But the impulse, originally given by 
Van Diemen's Land, was soon communicated to the 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 37 



older Colony ; the long-forgotten track (or marlced-tree 
road, as such tracks are called by the Colonists) of Messrs. 
Ho veil and Hume was soon found by numerous adven- 
turers from New South Wales, and sheep and cattle 
in vast numbers were in due time driven overland to 
occupy the rich pastures of Port Phillip. And when 
Sir Thomas Mitchell's Account of the discovery of the 
district he has named Australia Felix, or the Western 
District of Fhillipsland, was published in England in the 
year 1838. that impulse was extensively communicated 
to the emigrating portion of the British public ; and a 
stream of emigration, including a large proportion of 
families and individuals of a highly respectable stand- 
ing in society, and possessed of a large aggregate 
amount of capital, was at length directed from the mo- 
ther-country to Port Phillip, unprecedented for its mag- 
nitude in the annals of British Colonization. 

The general object of these emigrants was to expend 
a reasonable portion of their capital in the purchase of 
land and town allotments, and to settle as agriculturists 
and stockholders in the country, or as merchants, deal- 
ers, or in other branches of business, in the towns : and 
although there was no Parliamentary enactment on the 
subject till the passing of Lord Stanley's Australian 
Lands' Act of 1842, it was the practice of the Colonial 
Government to appropriate a large proportion of the 
proceeds of such sales to the encouragement and pro- 
motion of emigration, by conveying out to the Colony, 
at the public expense, whole shiploads of useful emi- 
grants of the humbler classes of society — farm-servants, 
shepherds, and mechanics — from the mother-country. 
This was doubtless the principal feature of what has 
usually been characterized, and not unfrequently de- 
cried, as the 'Wakefield System ; and I have no hesi- 
tation in expressing it as my decided opinion, that, in 
so far as that system consists in the disposal of the 
waste lands of the Australian Colonies at a reasonable 
price, and in the appropriation of a large portion of 
the proceeds of such sales to the encouragement and 
promotion of emigration, it is calculated, in the high- 



38 



PHILLIP SL AND • 



est degree, to ensure their speedy and comfortable set- 
tlement, and the rapid development of their vast re- 
sources. But no system, it should be borne in mind 
by the revilers of the Wakefield System, can properly 
be chargeable with the folly and the incapacity of those 
who happen for the time being to be intrusted with its 
management. 

Under this system, along with the emigration of nu- 
merous families and individuals of a higher class in so- 
ciety who defrayed the entire expense of their passage 
out to the new settlement, there was a still larger emi- 
gration of persons of the humbler classes, the expenses 
of whose passage out were defrayed exclusively by the 
public, as soon as the Land Fund, derived from the 
purchases of the former of these classes of emigrants, 
began to accumulate. And so rapidly did the stream 
of population continue to flow from the mother-country, 
as well as from the neighbouring settlements of New 
South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, that, at the 
close of the year 1840 — only four years and a-half after 
the settlement was formally established — the population 
amounted to 11,738 ; and to this amount the additions 
of the following year were sufficient to raise it to 
20,000. At the close of 1840, the amount of stock in 
Phillipsland was as follows, viz. — 

Horses, . 2,372* 

Cattle, . 50,837 

Sheep, . 782,283 

The number of acres of land in cultivation at the 
same period was 4875, viz. — 



In wheat, 


1762 


In maize or Indian corn, 


82 


In barley, 


353 


In oats, ^ . . 


1284 


In potatoes, 


932 


In tobacco, 


72 



* A considerable number of these had been imported from 
South America. 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 39 

During the years 1843, 1844, and 1845, immigra- 
tion into Port Phillip experienced, from causes to be 
afterwards indicated, a complete check, and the pro- 
vince was unfortunately visited with a period of ex- 
tensive calamity, arising from a sudden and unprece- 
dented depreciation of property of all kinds, in the 
course of which many respectable families and indivi- 
duals were involved in ruin. But the progressive ad- 
vancement of the settlement in population and in all 
the substantial elements of public and private wealth, 
still continued ; and at the close of the period referred 
to, it had completely recovered its former state of pro- 
sperity, while that prosperity was unquestionably fixed 
on a much more stable basis than ever. From the 
census taken in the month of March 1846, the entire 
population of Phillipsland amounted to 32,895/ of 
which the distribution is as follows, viz. — 

Town of Melbourne. 

Gipp's Ward, . Males, 

Females, , 

Bourke Ward, , Males, 

Females, . 

Lonsdale Ward, Males, 

Females, . 

La Trobe Ward, Males, 

Females, , 



Total, 
Carry forward, 



1758 
1602 

976 

929 

1481 
1176 

1557 
1495 



3360 



1905 



3052 



10,974 



10,974 



* In this census, the population of the extensive pastoral coun- 
try between the Murrumbidgee and the Hume River is not in- 
cluded. 



40 



Males, 
Females, 



Males, 
Females, 



Males, 
Females, 



Males, 
Females, 



PHILLIPSLAlsD. 

Brought forward, 
County of Bourke. 



Gippsland. 



Murray District. 



Western Port. 



10,974 



3688 
2688 



6376 



612 
240 



852 



1142 
416 



1558 



2516 
1009 



3525 



County of Grant and Geelong. 



Males, 
Females, 



2339 
1531 



3870 



Portland, 

Inclusive of the townships of Portland and Belfast. 



Males, 
Females, 



4130 
1610 



5740 



Total, . 32,895 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 41 

The following was the amount of live stock in 
Phillipsland on the 1st of January 1846, exclusive of 
the amount depastured between the Murrumbidgee and 
the Hume : — 





HORSES, 


HORNED 
CATTLE. 


PIGS. 


SHEEP. 




Number. 


Number. 


Number. 


Number. 


Bourke, 
Grant, . 
Nornianby, 

Without the Boundaries, 


1,325 
521 
310 

7,133 


17,074 
6,941 
6,614 
200,973 


1,320 
1,076 
216 
1,374 


89,627 
163,353 
108,633 
1,430,914 




9,289 


231,602 


3,986 


1,792,527 



The following Abstract of the Ordinary Revenue of 
the Province, and of the Expenditure of its Govern- 
ment Establishment, from the formation of the settle- 
ment till the close of the year 1842, will exhibit a 
similar result : — 





Ordinary Revenue. 


Government Expenditure. 


1836.. 




£2,164 16 8 


1837.. 


. £2,358 15 10 .. 


5,879 2 if 


1838.. 


. 2,825 17 10 .. 


16,030 2 5| 


1839.. 


14,703 5 10 .. 


24,034 10 


1840.. 


36,856 1 6.. 


41,374 18 4 


1841.. 


81,673 10 4 


74,324 19 41 


1842.. 


84,566 9 3 .. 


91,156 10 llf 



Total, £222,984 0 7 Total, £254,965 0 6J 

There had thus been an Ordinary Revenue of 
£222,984 0s. 7d., derived chiefly from Customs' 
Duties, from the province of Phillipsland during the 
first six years of its existence as a British settlement, 
while the Government Expenditure during the same 
period had amounted to £254,965 0s. 6^d., leaving a 
balance of £31,980 19s. ll^d. against the province 
on the 31st Dec. 1842. But although the revenue 
fell off considerably during the calamitous period that 
ensued, a still greater reduction having in the meantime 



42 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



been effected in the Government expenditure, the 
whole of this balance was cleared off before the 31st of 
Dec. 1845, at which time there was a surplus revenue 
of £20,000, or thereby, over and above the whole 
amount of the Government expenditure up to that 
date. The revenue for the first quarter of the year 
1846 (including £2,806 of Crown Land Revenue) 
amounted to £20,743, or upwards of £80,000 per 
annum — a satisfactory proof of the reality of the 
change for the better to which I have adverted, as 
compared with the state of things during the three 
preceding years.* 



* The items of this amount will appear in the following 
Abstract : — 

Abstract of the Revenue of the District of Port Phillip, in the 
Colony of New South Wales, in the Quarter ended 31st March 
1846, showing the increase or decrease, under each head 
thereof. 

GENERAL REVENUE. 

Duties on spirits imported (19,356 gallons) £5034 ; decrease 
£1828. 

Duties on tobacco imported, £2937 ; decrease £187. 
Ad valorem duty on foreign goods imported, £1728 ; increase 
£864. 

Fees on the entry and clearance of vessels, wharfage, and 
light-house dues, £625 ; increase £65. 

Post-office collections, £780 ; increase £167. 

Auction-duty and licenses to auctioneers, £349 ; increase £41. 

Licenses to distil and to retail fermented and spirituous 
liquors, £38 ; decrease £16. 

Collected by clerks of petty sessions, for night licenses to pub- 
licans, and for billiard table, £J0 ; decrease £10. 

Licenses to hawkers and pedlars, £4. 

Rents of tolls and ferries, decrease £25. 

Assessment on stock by Commissioners of crown lands, £5959 ; 
increase £1186. 

Proceeds of the sale of unbranded cattle by Commissioners of 
crown lands, 10s. ; increase 10s. 

Collected as tonnage duty, in support of the water police, £40 ; 
increase £15. 

Fees of civil offices, £52 ; increase £19. 

Fees of the several offices of the Supreme Court, £232 ; de- 
crease £20. 

Fees of the courts of petty sessions, £72 ; increase £6. 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 43 



The Imports and Exports of Phillipsland during the 
undermentioned years were as follows, viz. : — 



Imports. Exports. 

1837... £108,939 £12,180 

1838... 71,061 20,589 

1839... 204,722 77,684 

1840... 392,026 154,650 

1841... 335,252 139,135 

1842... uncertain uncertain 

1843... 186,249 243,959 

1844... 151,062 256,847 



1845 Not distinguished from those of N.S.Wales. 
The export of Wool from Port Phillip during the 
same period has been as follows,, viz. : — 







lbs. 


In 1837 




175,081 


„ 1838 .. 




. 320,393 


„ 1839 




615,605 


„ 1840 .. 




. 929,325 


„ 1841 




1,578,351 


„ 1842 ., 


.. Not ascertained. 




„ 1843 


15,378 bales or 


. 3,895,313 


„ 1844 


18,000 do. 


. 4,500,000 


„ 1845 .. 


;. 21,660 do. 


. 5,415,000 



Fees of Commissioners of crown lands, and fines under Act of 
Council, 2 Vic, No. 27, £75 ; decrease £18. 

Total of Ordinary Revenue, £17,937 ; increase £237. 

CROWN REVENUES. 

Land fund, being proceeds of the sale of land and town allot- 
ments, £1758 ; increase £1091. 

Rents of land temporarily leased, £11 ; increase £11. 

Licenses to depasture stock on crown lands, £850 ; increase 
£35. 

Licenses to cut timber on crown lands, £62 ; increase £30. 
Rents of Government premises, £3 ; decrease £15. 
Fines collected by the deputy sheriff, £12; increase £12. 
Fines collected by the several courts of petty sessions, £"96 ; 
increase £25. 

Proceeds of the sale of confiscated and unclaimed property, 
£12 ; increase £9. 

Total of crown revenue, £2806 ; increase £1200. 

General total, £20,743. 

Net increase on the Quarter, £1458. 



44 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



The exports from Port Phillip to Great Britain from 
December 1845, to May 1846, both inclusive, (being 
the wool-shipping season for the latter of these years) 
amount, according to the tables of a highly intelligent 
merchant, to — 

Wool, . . 24,850 bales, or 6,212,500 lbs. 
Mimosa Bark,) 



534 tons. 

184 casks. 

31 tons. 
1956 
229 

16,200 bushels. 



for tanning j 
Tallow, . . 
Bones, . 
Hides, . . 
Logs of Gum, 
Wheat ; 

But the most remarkable feature in the history of 
Phillipsland is the amount derived from the sale of 
waste land and town allotments, as contrasted with 
the Government expenditure for immigration in Port 
Phillip, during the first six years of its existence as a 
Government establishment, as exhibited in the follow- 
ing Abstract of a Return which I moved for during the 
first session of the present Legislative Council of New 
South Wales, in the year 1843 : — 

Proceeds of the Sale of Land and Town Allotments during 
the following years — 



1837 . . . 

1838 . . . 

1839 . . . 

1840 . . . 

1841 . . . 
1842* s . . 


Land. 


Town Allotments. 


Totals. 


£ s. d. 

25,287 17 9 
50,986 11 11 
154,584 6 3 
68,435 7 0 
2,000 0 0 


£ s. d. 

3,712 14 0 
11,906 14 0 

9,008 2 8 
82,543 10 3 

2,716 14 3 
729 12 8 


£ s. d. 
3,712 14 0 
37,194 12 1 
59,994 14 7 
219,127 16 6 
71,152 1 3 
2,729 12 8 


286,294 2 11 


110,617 8 2 


393,911 11 1 



* The sums derived from the sale of land throughout the 
whole territory of New South Wales, including Port Phillip, 
during the years 1843, 1844, and 1845, amounted altogether to 
only £37,151, 7s. 9d., the sale of land and immigration having 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 



43 



£ s. d. 

844 0 0 

. 11,824 11 4 

. 27,919 12 6 

. 125,965 12 10 

. 37,892 8 41 

Total, . . . 204,446 5 0| 

It thus appears that during the first six years of the 
existence of the settlement of Port Phillip, the inhabit- 
ants of that district, who at the close of this period 
amounted to 20,000, or thereby, had raised a revenue 
of £254,000, and paid upwards of £393,000 addi- 
tional into the Colonial Treasury for Crown Land and 
Town Allotments. So extraordinary an increase of 
population, especially considering the vast distance of 
Phillipsland from the mother-country, and so rapid a 
creation of all the elements of wealth as the other 
statistics I have given imply, are altogether unprece- 
dented in the annals of British colonization. " Doubt- 
less," the reader will naturally conclude, " so extra- 
ordinary a state of things must have been owing, in 
great measure, to uncommonly good government, and 
especially to the skilful application of some strong 
stimulus, on the part of an enlightened and patriotic 
administration, to the irrepressible energies of a 
thoroughly British population." I shall leave him, 
however, to judge for himself, from the sequel, whether 
such an opinion is at all accordant with the truth. 

The district of Port Phillip had not been taken pos- 
session of as a Government settlement when I left the 
colony of New South Wales for England, for the fourth 
time, in the year 1836; but anticipating, from what I 
then knew of the capabilities of the country, its rapid 
advancement, I took occasion to recommend, in the 
second edition of my Historical and Statistical Account of 
New South Wales, of which the second edition was pub- 



both nearly ceased for a time in 1842. It would, therefore, be 
of no use to these calculations to continue the Port Phillip 
account during the next three years. 



Expenditure for Immigration in 1838, 

1839, 
1840, 
184], 
1842, 



46 



PHILLIP SL AND. 



lished in England during the following year j that, in 
strict justice to the future inhabitants of Port Phillip, 
the whole amount to be derived from the sale of waste 
land in that district should be expended in promoting 
emigration from the mother-country to that part of the 
territory, or in whatever other service might be deemed 
equally conducive to its general welfare and advance- 
ment. In the propriety of this recommendation the 
Land and Emigration Commissioners, and, at their 
suggestion, Lord John Russell also, when that noble- 
man became Secretary of State for the Colonies, con- 
curred ; and a dispatch was accordingly forwarded to 
Sir George Gipps, who was then Governor of New 
South Wales, directing that the funds arising from the 
sale of land at Port Phillip should be appropriated for 
the promotion of emigration to that district exclusively. 
But Sir George Gipps was of a different opinion, and 
insisted, that so long as Port Phillip was a part of the 
colony of New South Wales, the Bounty Emigrants, 
whose passage should be paid for from the land reve- 
nues of that district, should be sent out indiscriminately 
to New South Wales. The result of this most iniqui- 
tous arrangement, which was too readily acquiesced in 
by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and which 
proved the first " heavy blow and great discouragement" 
to Port Phillip, was that the community of that district, 
struggling as they were with all the difficulties of a first 
settlement upon a remote coast, were unjustly deprived, 
or to speak the plain truth, defrauded of their Land 
Revenue by the Government of New South Wales, to 
the extent of not less than £189,465, 6s. O^d., previous 
to the close of the first six years of their existence as a 
Colonial dependency ! Had this large amount of re- 
venue been duly expended in the introduction of free 
immigrant labourers from the mother-country, the 
earlier settlers of Port Phillip would have had abund- 
ance of comparatively cheap labour for all purposes ; 
but in consequence of its unjustifiable abstraction and 
misappropriation in the wayl have mentioned, the wages 
of labour in that district rose to an amount which 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT . 47 

eventually proved absolutely ruinous to many respect- 
able emigrants, and greatly retarded the general ad- 
vancement of the province. From <£35 to £45, and 
even £50 a-year, with a weekly ration of 10 lbs. of 
flour, 12 lbs. of butcher meat, 2 lbs. of sugar, and ^ lb. 
of tea — articles of consumption which were all exceed- 
ingly high priced at Port Phillip at the period I refer 
to — was the usual wages of a farm-labourer or shep- 
herd ; and these wages were not unfrequently expended 
in the most reckless dissipation. At the Select Com- 
mittee of the Legislative Council of New South Wales 
on Immigration, during the Session of 1843, Alexander 
Thomson, Esq., one of the original members of that 
body for the district of Port Phillip, being examined as 
a witness, was asked the following questions, after 
having alluded to the high rate of wages in the district, 
to which he gave the subjoined replies : — 

" 13. By the Chairman Can you quote any instances as to the 

mode in which shepherds have spent their money — have you ever 
heard of their drinking Champagne ? — I have known them go to 
a neighbouring public house and order a three dozen case of Cham- 
pagne into the tap, which they would drink and distribute to their 
friends and standers by ; that is not by any means a singular 
case. It was not an every-day occurrence to order in a whole 
case, but almost every-day throughout the sheep- shearing season, 
they would have several bottles of Champagne, and rum they 
would have in by buckets-full, and deal it out. 

"14. In short, I suppose when they received these large wages 
they were employed in dissipation and extravagance of the most 
reckless kind ? — Yes ; I have frequently seen a shepherd offer to 
treat his master with Champagne. 

" 15. Could the master afford to drink Champagne at that time 
himself ? — No, he could not. It has occurred to myself that my 
servants have called to me, and offered to treat me to a bottle of 
Champagne." 

The intelligent reader will scarcely need to be in- 
formed that the master, generally speaking, must have 
been far on the high road to ruin, when his servants 
could afford to treat him to Champagne. In fact, there 
were instances of servants of a different character being 
able, in the calamitous times that ensued, to purchase 
their masters' entire establishment, with the savings of 
their own previous earnings and the arrears of wages 
that were due them. 



48 PHILLIPSLAXD. 

But the community of Port Phillip experienced an- 
other " heavy blow and great discouragement" from 
the Local Executive in the policy of the Government 
in regard to the sale of land ; for everything connected 
with the general welfare of the settlement, and the 
advancement of the best interests of its inhabitants, 
was sacrificed to the paramount object of raising an 
enormous revenue from that source. 

For example, the balances in the Colonial Treasury 
were usually placed in the Colonial Banks at an interest 
of four per cent. ; but as soon as the demand for land be- 
came somewhat brisk, from the great influx of immi- 
grants with capital who were eager to purchase, the 
interest on these Government balances was raised either 
to seven or to seven and a half per cent. To enable 
the banks to pay this high rate of interest, and to make 
a colonial profit besides on their transactions, these in- 
stitutions were virtually obliged to drive a large business 
by advancing their money in the most profuse manner 
to any Colonial man of straw who chose to compete at 
the Government land sales with the newly-arrived re- 
spectable emigrant, with his limited amount of bona fide 
capital, on the outlay of which he had in all probability 
staked the fortunes of his family. 

Besides, as the Government had a monopoly of the 
article which was in general demand, it was compara- 
tively easy to stimulate this unequal competition, either 
by throwing only a small quantity of the commodity 
into the market, sufficient merely to provoke the appe- 
tite of the intending purchasers, or by fixing an exor- 
bitantly high minimum price on that commodity. 
Which of these tricks would have been styled by card- 
players the odd trick, I do not know ; but Sir George 
Gipps systematically practised both tricks — for I can 
regard them in no other light — to cozen the unfortunate 
emigrants out of their money. The following returns 
of the land and town allotments sold in the district of 
Port Phillip up to the close of the year 1840, will ex- 
hibit, in some degree at least, this peculiar policy of the 
Government of Sir George Gipps. 



HISTORY A ND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 49 



Return of all sales of Town Allotments in the District of Port Phillip, 
from the 1st June 1837, to the 31st Dec. 1840. 



When Sold. Where Sold. 



Town, 



June 1, 1837 



Nov. 1, „ 
Sep. 13, 1838 



Feb. 14, 1839 

11 99 

April 11, „ 
June 10, 1840 
Aug. 13, „ 

99 99 

Sep. 10, „ 
Oct. 15, „ 



Melbourne 

ditto 

ditto 
Sydney 

ditto | 

ditto 
ditto 
ditto 
Melbourne 
ditto 
ditto 

i 



ditto 
ditto 



Melbourne 
William's ^ 
| Town ) 
| Melbourne 

ditto 
William's ) 
Town j 
Melbourne 
Geelong 
Melbourne 
ditto 
ditto 
Geelong 
William's) 
Town. \ 
, Portland 



Bourke 

ditto 

ditto 
ditto 

ditto 

ditto 
Grant 
Bourke 
ditto 
ditto 
Grant 

Bourke 





£ 


s. 


d. 


£ 




100 


35 


3 




3517 


0 


7 
1 


46 




ft 3 


325 


q 


80 i 


42 


30 




3403 


0 


67 J 


118 


4 




7921 


4 


20 i 


41 


5 


6 


825 


1 0 


35 • 


124 


1 4 


3 


4365 


o 


53 


52 


10 


5 


2784 


0 


25 


74 


0 


0 


1839 


0 


84 


445 


5 


0 


37401 


3 


45 


316 


14 


8 


14253 


0 


53 


188 


13 


7 


10000 


0 


; 27 


240 


6 


0 


6488 


0 


; 40 


275 


13 


3 


11026 


10 


I 








104148 


7 



Return of all Country and Suburban Lands sold during the same period. 



| Date of i 


sale. 


Where Sold. 


County and 
Nature of Lands, j 


No. of Acres. 


A 


veraaie \ 
.'rice. 


Amount. 










A. 


R. 


p. 


£ 




d. 


£ s 


d. 


! Sep. 12, 


1838 


Sydney 


Bourke— C * 1 


38853 


0 


0 


0 


13 


0 


25286 


1 6 


Feb. 13, 


1839 


ditto 


ditto — S.f | 


1002 


2 


0 


7 


11 


0 


7571 


8 Oj 




9") 


ditto 


Grant — C. \ 15576 


0 


0 


0 


13 


91 


10753 


8 0 


May 8, 


'.9 


ditto 


Bourke — C. 


9060 


0 


0 


0 


12 


9f 


5808 


0 0 


Aug. 1, 


91 


Melbourne 


ditto— C. 


5907 


0 


0 


I 


7 


H 


8110 


2 0 




99 


ditto 


ditto— S. 


3] 6 


0 


0 20 


12 


H 


6518 


0 0 


Oct. 3, 


99 


ditto 


ditto— C. 


5234 


0 


0 


2 


4 


6 


11654 


3 0 


91 


99 


ditto 


ditto — S. 


250 


0 


0 16 


14 


n 


4178 


15 0 






ditto 


Grant — S. 


852 


0 


0 


7 


9 


64 


6370 


14 6 


Feb. 5, 


1840 


ditto 


Bourke — C. 


21589 


0 


0 


1 


9 


11 


31457 


2 3 




19 


ditto 


Grant— C. 


18852 


0 


0 


1 


9 




27873 


0 0 


April 15 


1 19 


ditto 


Bourke— C. 


18335 


0 


0 


0 


14 


H 


12938 


16 0 


June 10 


9 99 


ditto 


ditto — C. 


7214 


0 


0 


1 


6 


Hi 


23203 


5 0 


91 


19 


ditto 


ditto — S. 


4502 


1 


0 


9 


3 


6 


41314 


16 0 




91 


ditto 


Grant — 


2917 


0 


0 


1 o 


15 


H 


2266 


6 0 


Oct. 15, 


19 


ditto 


Normanby — S. 


314 


1 


20 19 


13 


4 


6219 


0 5 










15077 


1 0 20 








231526 9 8 



C. Countrv. 



f S. Suburban. 



50 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



The sales in 1837 took place during the government 
of Sir Richard Bourke, when the population of Port 
Phillip must have been very small, and the majority 
of that population consisted almost exclusively of un- 
married persons from Yan Diemen's Land. Yet, even 
in these circumstances, that able man, who always 
studied the best interests of the community, whatever 
might become of the Revenue, caused not fewer than 
187 town allotments to be disposed of, chiefly in Mel- 
bourne, the principal town ; and, as every person who 
wished to erect a house for himself in the town had 
thus an opportunity of doing so, the allotments sold at 
the moderate rate of from £35 to £45 each. But in 
1838 and 1839, during the government of Sir George 
Gripps, when the population had increased twenty- 
fold, and when a large portion of that population con- 
sisted of respectable free emigrants from home, with 
their wives and families, for whom it was absolutely 
necessary to procure building allotments somewhere, 
only 67 towm allotments were allowed to be sold in Mel- 
bourne in the former of these years, and 60 during the 
latter, a small number additional having been disposed 
of in two secondary towns. By this means, the ima- 
ginary value of town allotments was raised to a most 
exorbitant height ; and the minimum price having, in 
the meantime, been raised to £300 per acre, contrary 
to the directions of Lord John Russell, who had fixed 
it at £100, the Local Government w r as enabled to dis- 
pose of 129 allotments in Melbourne, in the year 1840, 
at an average price of £445 per allotment at one sale, 
and at £316 at another.* In the same way, viz. by 



* " Desiring, then, that no town sites shall be reserved inland, 
and that even on the coast only the probable situation of consi- 
derable sea-ports should be reserved, 1 propose to advance a step 
farther, and to direct, that when such towns are properly laid out 
and offered for sale, the lots may consist of acres, or equal parts 
of acres, as the circumstances of the case may require, but that 
the price shall be fixed at the uniform rate of £100 per acre." — 
Extract from the Right Honourable Lord John Russell's Dispatch 
to Governor Sir George Gipps, of date 3lst May 1840. 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 51 

throwing into the market only a small quantity of the 
commodity which was in universal demand, but of 
which the Government possessed an absolute monopoly, 
the price of country and suburban lands was forced up 
to a ruinous height, insomuch that suburban allotments 
within a few miles of the towns of Melbourne, Geelong, 
and Portland, were disposed of successively at <£7, £16, 
and £20 per acre ; and the unfortunate emigrant who 
had come out to the colony in the hope of obtaining a 
moderate extent of land for a homestead for his family, 
in an eligible situation and at a reasonable price, saw 
himself, after paying, probably, a large amount for his 
passage out, stripped of the greater portion of his re- 
maining capital for a few acres of waste land, without 
either a road or a bridge to lead to it, for the due im- 
provement of which he had neither the requisite spirit 
nor the requisite means. In short, before the close of 
the fourth year of the existence of the settlement, the 
Local Government had, by a species of trickery worthy 
only of a Jew-pedlar, and utterly unworthy of the 
Representative of Majesty, abstracted from the unfor- 
tunate inhabitants of Phillipsland the sum of £104,148, 
0s. 7d. for a few acres of town allotments, as they were 
called — that is, for half-acre patches of building ground 
in localities where everything was left in a state of 
nature, and the names and lines of the so-called streets 
could only be ascertained by a surveyors peg or a 
ticket nailed up here and there to a tree — besides 
£231,526, 9s. 8d. for 150,774 acres and 20 perches 
of waste land ! 

At the famous sale of the 10th June 1840, which 
realized upwards of £100,000— viz. £37,401, 3s. for 
84 building allotments in the town of Melbourne, at 
the rate of £445, 5s. each, and £64,518, Is. for 11,716 
acres of waste land in the surrounding district, at an 
average of £1, 6s. ll^d. for country lands, and £9, 3s. 
6d. for suburban allotments — sections of land were sold 
for £30 to £40 an acre, and suburban allotments, two 
miles from Melbourne, at £42 an acre. On that occa- 
sion, Mr. Wills, a native of New South Wales, who 



52 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



had accumulated a considerable colonial fortune as a 
stockholder in that colony, and who was desirous of 
purchasing a homestead of moderate extent (as it would 
be considered in that part of the territory,) purchased, 
with this view, 173 acres of suburban allotments on 
the banks of the Yarra-Yarra River, four or five miles 
from Melbourne ; and this purchase cost him £3784. 
The land was doubtless beautifully situated on a bend 
of the river, which nearly encircled it ; but there was 
no road to it for years thereafter ; there was no bridge 
across an intervening creek or torrent, which is occa- 
sionally so much swollen that people have lost their 
lives in attempting to ford it ; and it was so heavily 
timbered that, during the high price of labour in the 
district, occasioned by the abstraction of so large a 
portion of its Land Fund, some of it cost £16 an acre 
to clear. Mr. Wills certainly paid dear enough for his 
whistle; but he was not so unfortunate as many other 
equally respectable colonists direct from the mother- 
country, but who were not possessed of the same ample 
means, in not being obliged to sell his whole property 
during the period of collapse that ensued, at perhaps a 
tenth part of what it had cost him.* 



* The prices which land and town allotments in and near 
Melbourne realized during the period when speculation was at its 
height, will almost exceed belief. A single acre of building ground 
in the town of Melbourne realized £10.000 — from 1 5 to 32 guineas 
per foot of frontage ! Suburban allotments ranged at from £100 
to £500 an acre, and no waste land of fair quality was procurable 
within five miles of the town for less than £10 an acre. In the 
course of the proceeding.-, of the Old Legislative Council on the 
subject of immigration, on the 2'2d October 1840, Sir George 
Gipps observed that " it would be extremely satisfactory to the 
Council to know that he expected the Land Fund for the present 
year to amount to £350,000 or £400,000. The last time the ac- 
counts were before him, the amount which had then actually been 
paid into the Colonial Treasury for Crown lands was £306,000.- 
Since then there had been other land sales, and he had that 
morning received an account of a sale in a new part of the country, 
Portland Bay, which amounted to £17,000. Town allotments 
in the projected town of Portland — where there was not a single 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 53 



Doubtless, Sir George Gipps will defend this heart- 
less and insane policy of his unhappy and calamitous 
administration, which issued so speedily in the utter 
ruin of many respectable families and individuals, who 
would otherwise have proved most valuable colonists, 
by alleging that it was the people's own act and deed 
to purchase the waste land he was pleased to dispose 
of at such ruinous prices, and that nobody was com- 
pelled to purchase at all. But the same argument 
may be used, with far greater justice, by the proprietor 
of Crockford's gaming-house in London, or of a E&uge 
et Noir table in the Palais-Eoyal of Paris. Sir George 
Gipps knew well that the unfortunate emigrants were 
virtually compelled to purchase land and town allot- 
ments, whatever they might cost them. He knew they 
could neither live on the sea-beach nor in the wild 
forest ; and he knew also that there would be at least 
half-a-dozen competitors for every lot of land he thought 
proper to dispose of. In short, he knew, and he meanly 
took advantage of, the urgent necessities of the people. 

This policy was attended with two consequences 
that might have been foreseen. Persons who had 
bought allotments in Melbourne were induced to cut 
them up, by means of the narrowest lanes, blind alleys, 
or culs de sac, into the pettiest fragments, which they 
sold at a large profit to persons in the humbler walks 
of life, or on which they erected houses to let for such 
persons ; insomuch that, in one of the most recently 
formed towns in Her Majesty's dominions — a town not 
more than ten years old — there are localities as densely 
peopled as in the oldest cities of Europe. This is 
obviously most prejudicial to the public health ; and 
as the Yarra-Yarra River, which skirts the town, occa- 
sionally overflows its banks, and lays a large extent of 



house, and at present no Government establishment, the police 
magistrate of which, although appointed, had not yet arrived, the 
place, in fact, being little more than a desert — fetched upwards of 
£500 au acre, twenty acres having fetched £11,000." Why, Sir 
George, were there only twenty offered for sale \ 



54 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



low land in the vicinity under water, it is sure to 
generate disease when the miasma arising from this 
flooded land comes to be pent up in the low and densely 
peopled localities of a large towm. 

In other cases, as the town boundary, within which 
the minimum price of building allotments was £800 
an acre, while allotments without the boundary were 
put up at £25 an acre, w r as a mere imaginary line, 
prudent individuals purchased a sufficient extent of land 
of the latter description, at as small an advance as 
possible on the minimum price, under the pretext of 
forming suburban villas, and immediately cut it up 
into streets and lanes, and went into the market forth- 
with as competitors with the Government in the noto- 
rious speculation of forming towns. In this way, 
colonial towns " of the Gipps' formation" may be recog- 
nised at once by the modern geologist, from the resem- 
blance they uniformly bear to a sow and pigs ; there 
being, in each case of the kind, a sufficient concentra- 
tion of population, on the one hand, to render all the 
uncleanliness which the larger animal personifies an 
absolute reality, with a numerous progeny, on the other, 
of little, insignificant, straggling villages, each ambi- 
tiously attempting to rival its parent, all around it. 
This is precisely the case with the town of Melbourne, 
the town of Geelong, situated fifty miles distant, at the 
head of the western arm of Port Phillip, and the town 
of Brisbane, 1100 miles distant, at the northern extre- 
mity of New South Wales. 

The welfare of a colonial community is affected, to a 
much greater degree than most people would at first 
imagine, by such arrangements as these. For example, 
a minister of religion will be able to take the clerical 
superintendence of a much larger population in a com- 
pact town, than if the people of his charge were scat- 
tered about in a number of straggling villages ; and the 
probability is, that his congregation will, in the former 
case, be much more attentive to the ordinances of reli- 
gion. A schoolmaster will be able to educate perhaps 
four times the number of pupils in the town than in 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 55 



the petty villages, or rather, the schools in the latter 
case, if there are any at all, will be of a very inferior 
description. The police will also be much more effi- 
cient for the preservation of the public peace and the 
repression of disorder in the town, while its cost will 
be much smaller to the population individually ; and the 
town population will be able to construct, at a com- 
paratively trifling cost to each inhabitant, such public 
works as may be indispensably necessary either for the 
comfort or the health of the neighbourhood, but which 
the inhabitants of a series of insignificant villages would 
never think of. Besides, public opinion is always 
much more powerful and more influential for good in 
towns than in insignificant villages ; and it is always 
in towns, also, rather than in petty villages, that the 
spirit of civil and religious liberty is fostered and 
maintained. 

It was decidedly, therefore, the bounden duty of the 
Colonial Executive to promote the formation of respect- 
able towns, wherever the interests of commerce and 
navigation, and of the country generally, rendered the 
formation of a town indispensably necessary, by pur- 
suing the liberal policy which Lord John Eussell had 
recommended in regard to the disposal of town allot- 
ments, and by thereby preventing the town population 
from being dispersed over an extensive surface. 

But " the heaviest blow and the greatest discourage- 
ment" which the settlement of Phillipsland experienced 
at the hand of the Local Executive during the govern- 
ment of Sir George Gipps, consisted in his inundating 
the province with emigrants of a very inferior descrip- 
tion from the south and west of Ireland. With the 
prodigious moral power which the expenditure of the 
land revenue of Port Phillip placed in the hands of the 
Local Government during the first five years of the 
administration of Sir George Gipps, it will scarcely be 
believed by the intelligent reader that that Government 
should have left this department of the public service 
to mere chance, or rather that it should have put it in 
the power of a few rapacious and unprincipled indivi- 



56 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



duals in London, and elsewhere, to inundate the province, 
at the expense of the reputable portion of its population, 
with the veriest refuse of society from the British Isles. 
A certain amount of Bounty, sufficient to cover the 
whole expense of emigration, was guaranteed by the 
Colonial Government to the importers of emigrants ; 
permission to import such emigrants being obtainable 
by any person who applied for it, and no further care 
being exercised in the matter by the Local Government. 
In this way, the transcenclently important office of se- 
lecting proper persons to form the basis of the super- 
structure of Colonial society in Phillipsland having 
fallen, as if by mere chance, into the hands of a few 
thoroughly unprincipled speculators in the mother- 
country, these parties soon found that they could col- 
lect their complement of emigrants with far less trouble, 
and at far less expense, in the south and west of Ireland 
than in any other part of the United Kingdom ; as both 
Plymouth and Cork, where the emigrants from that 
island could be collected at the merest trifle of expense, 
were at the mouth of the British Channel, and, conse- 
quently, the most convenient ports in the kingdom for 
a vessel to touch at, on her voyage out from London. 
Accordingly, the whole Colony of New South Wales, 
and, in particular, the province of Phillipsland, was in- 
undated for years together, at the public expense, with 
shipload after shipload of Roman Catholics from the south- 
west of Ireland — many of them of a very inferior 
description both as to character and ability, and not a 
few not inferior, in the very worst qualities of the 
worst parts of Tipperary, to any of their countrymen at 
home. Of the extent to which this Irish Roman Ca- 
tholic emigration was carried, at the expense of the 
Protestant inhabitants of the Colony, to New South 
Wales generally, and in particular to the province of 
Phillipsland, during the government of Sir George 
Gipps, the reader may form some idea from the fact 
that, of the 25,330 emigrants imported into the whole 
Colony, at the public expense, from the 1st of January 
1841 to the 30th of June 1842, not fewer than 16,892, 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 57 

or two-thirds of the whole number, were natives of Ire- 
land, chiefly Roman Catholics from the south and west, 
and only 8438, or one-third, from England and Scot- 
land together ; Ireland having thus had four times her 
proper share of the benefit accorded by the Colonial 
Government, in proportion to her population as com- 
pared with that of Great Britain. In such circumstances, 
the reader will not be surprised to learn that the Co- 
lony should for years past have been rapidly acquiring 
the character of an Irish Roman Catholic Colony, in 
which all public questions of importance are likely to 
be decided, ere long, agreeably to the pleasure of a fe- 
rocious Irish mob, influenced or rather goaded on by 
an ambitious and intolerant Romish priesthood. 

For the character of a large portion of the Bounty 
Immigrants imported into Port Phillip, under this inex- 
cusable mismanagement, or rather breach of trust, on 
the part of the Colonial Executive during the govern- 
ment of Sir George Gipps, I shall refer once more to 
the evidence of Dr. Thomson, given before the Select 
Committee on Immigration for 1843. 

25. By the Colonial Secretary : Generally speaking, do you find 
men who come from towns willing to engage as labourers or shep- 
herds in the country % — There is a disinclination on the part of 
such persons to go into the interior. We have had a great 
many immigrants brought to Port Phillip, who are utterly use- 
less ; in point of intellect they are inferior to our own aborigines. 

26. What do they represent themselves as being % — Labourers. 

27. By Dr. Lang : Where do they come from % — The south of 
Ireland. 

In the proceedings of the old Legislative Council of 
New South Wales on the subject of Immigration, on the 
22d October 1840, it is reported in the papers of the 
day that 

The Governor drew the attention of the Council to the fact, 
that for some weeks in 1839, there were between three and four 
hundred emigrants maintained by Government until they could 
obtain employment. 

Mr Blaxland said they only remained in the immigrant bar- 
racks because they preferred loitering about there ; many of them, 
to his knowledge, refused very good offers. 

The Colonial Secretary said this was founded on the evidence 
of Mr. Pinnock [the Immigration Agent.] 



58 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



The Attorney-General (Mr. Plunket,) said that another reason 
for their remaining on hand was to be found in Mr. Pinnock's 
evidence, and that was, that they were Irish immigrants, and 
they remained on hand because they were Irish, and for that rea- 
son alone. Mr. Pinnock stated that they were unserviceable, but 
he did not state how or why ; and there could be no doubt that 
it was the Anti-Irish feeling which prevented them from being 
engaged while there were any immigrants from England or Scot- 
land, although Irishmen were found to be as good servants, as 
good shepherds, and as good men in every respect. 

Mr. Jones observed that the learned Attorney-General had said 
there was an Anti-Irish feeling in the colony. He (Mr. Jones) 
was not aware of such a feeling, but at present none but Irish 
emigrants were sent out, and he did think it a great disadvantage 
to the Colony to get nothing but Irish ; and if our true position 
were known in England, he felt confident that we should get them 
as fast from England as we now did from Ireland. He liked na- 
tionality, and if the Attorney-General liked to see Irish people 
arriving, he (Mr. Jones) would like to see the balance restored by 
the introduction of a number of English people. 

The Governor, said he would take this opportunity of deprecat- 
ing any distinction being made between English and Irish immi- 
grants. The question should be — was a man a good shepherd, or 
a good labourer, and if he was, it mattered not whether he was 
English or Irish, Roman Catholic or Protestant. 

Impartial in a n ! he made no distinction between Eng- 
lish or Irish, Roman Catholic or Protestant, and ac- 
cordingly inundated the Colony with Irish Roman Ca- 
tholics ! 

To a££ravate the serious evil to which the earlier 
settlers of Phillipsland were subjected from the exorbit- 
antly high price both of land and labour, stock 
of all descriptions, and provisions of all kinds, were at 
an equally exorbitant price at the period when the 
stream of emigration began to set in in full force from 
the mother-country. The sudden demand for stock, 
which the opening up of that province as a grazing 
district produced, the simultaneous appearance of so 
many intending purchasers direct from England, the 
spirit of enormous speculation which the policy of the 
Government in regard to the disposal of waste land had 
conjured up throughout the colony, and the creation of 
fictitious capital to an unlimited amount by the Colonial 
Banks — all concurred to raise the price of all descrip- 
tions of stock to an extravagant height. And as the 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 59 

immense profits that were expected to be realized from 
the rearing of stock threw the more sober pursuits of 
agriculture completely into the shade, but little atten- 
tion was paid in the meantime to the raising of food 
for man ; in addition to which there was an extensive 
failure of the crop in New South Wales in 1838, which 
was succeeded by a great dearth in 1839. In such 
circumstances it was not to be supposed that very many 
of the earlier settlers of Phillipsland could continue 
to bear up against so extraordinary an accumulation 
of evils. Accordingly, not a few who had commenced 
with considerable capital lost everything and were ruin- 
ed, and many others who had obtained unlimited credit 
for a time from the Colonial banks became insolvent ; 
and of the latter a considerable number had greatly 
accelerated this consummation by habits of extravagance 
and dissipation. It has been calculated that in the 
period of general depression that succeeded the enor- 
mous transactions in land and stock throughout the 
entire colony of New South Wales, during the years 
1839, 1840, and 1841, there was an amount of insol- 
vency, as declared in the Colonial Insolvent Courts, 
equal to considerably upwards of £10, (some say as 
much as £20,) per head for every man, woman, and 
child in the Colony ; and of this insolvency the pro- 
vince of Phillipsland unquestionably bore its fair pro- 
portion. 

There were a few cases of suicide in these times of 
depression, but comparatively few, considering the great 
extent of the ruin that had been experienced ; there 
were also not a few respectable families and individuals 
who in other circumstances w T ould have done well for 
themselves, and proved a valuable acquisition to the 
Colony, but who returned to England on finding their 
hopes blasted and their prospects, as they conceived, 
irrecoverably clouded, and embodied their complaints, 
and occasionally their bile, against the country and 
everything that belonged to it, in long letters in news- 
papers, in clever articles in monthly magazines, and 
sometimes even in neat volumes bound in cloth with 



60 



PHILLIP SL AND. 



stamped covers. But by far the greater number, 
whether they had been compelled or not to resort to 
the Insolvent Court, took advantage of the highly 
favourable prospect which the colony still presented for 
commencing afresh, under happier auspices, with in- 
creased vigour and much valuable and dearly bought 
experience ; — and the result, as I have already observ- 
ed, has abundantly proved that this was by far the 
wisest course. 

Among those who attempted unsuccessfully to settle 
in Phillipsland during the period to which I have been 
referring, and who eventually returned to England and 
published their experience of the country, was Mr. 
Richard Howitt, a member of a well-known literary 
family in the city of Nottingham, whose recently publish- 
ed work, entitled " First Impressions of Australia Felix," 
although exhibiting " lights" as well as " shadows," 
is, upon the whole, decidedly calculated to injure the 
country, and to discourage and repress emigration to 
its shores. And it is chiefly to obviate the natural 
effect of such representations, and to explain to the 
reader how the failure of Mr. Howitt and others may 
have occurred during the period in question, without 
implying anything radically wrong in the physical 
character of the country, that I have been thus minute 
in tracing the temporary evil with which the province 
was then so deeply affected, to its proper source. 

Mr. Howitt arrived in Port Phillip on the 5th of 
April 1840, with an amount of capital sufficient, in 
other circumstances, and especially with the superior 
intelligence and energy which Mr. Howitt unquestion- 
ably exhibited, to have ensured his success. His first 
experience of the benefits and blessings of Colonial 
government, especially under the paternal rule of Sir 
George G-ipps, was gained immediately on his arrival, 
and is thus recorded : — 

" Another of the disadvantages attending Australian 
emigration, is the length of time before you can purchase 
land and locate yourself upon it. All who come out here 
must either purchase at second-hand, or wait for a 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. Gl 



Government sale. After waiting for several months, the 
sale-day arrives, and, to his mortification, there are only 
town allotments to be sold, and he wants a country section, 
The first week that we landed there was a land sale, 
but there was no land that suited us. Consequently 
ice had to wait, after a long and wearisome voyage from 
England, from April 5th to June 10th before we had an 
opportunity of purchasing" * 

At the memorable land sale of the 10th June 1840. 
Mr. Howatt purchased ninety-five acres of land, appa- 
rently at the rate of =£5, 5s. an acre, situated about five 
miles from Melbourne, on the Yarra-Yarra Eiver, 
" the soil tolerably rich ; the situation delicious." He 
had carried out with him from England a weather- 
boarded cottage, a very expensive and most unneces- 
sary accompaniment for a family emigrating to any 
part of Australia, especially in the present circumstances 
of the country, and it cost £6 to cart up this cottage 
in four dray loads from Melbourne, the Herri Creek 
on the way beiug very difficult to cross. The land in 
this locality is heavily timbered, and covered with large 
stones or rather rocks, which are evidently of igneous 
origin — the bed of the creek having apparently been 
the course of a stream or current of volcanic matter, 
the debris of which still covers the rich black soil on 
either side of the creek. Mr. Howitt's farm included 
a portion of low alluvial land, on which, he observes, 
" some of the trees were six or eight yards in circum- 
ference but he set to work with his nephew^, w T ho had 
accompanied him, and with great vigour and persever- 
ance succeeded in clearing it, doubtless at a vast ex- 
pense of labour, which might certainly have been more 
profitably expended otherwise. For after the land 
was cleared, it w^as found to be subject to inundations 
from the river or creek, and the crop was destroyed. 
His bullocks then went astray, a case of by no means 
unfrequent occurrence in Colonial farming, and much 



* Howitt's Impressions, &c, p. 220. London, 1845. 



62 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



valuable time was lost in seeking them.* And as the 
Government allowed people of the humbler classes, 
whose passage out as free immigrants had been paid 
out of the Land Revenue, to squat upon the unsold 
land in the immediate neighbourhood, and to raise crops 
from it for the market — a practice which I have no in- 
tention to defend, as I am not counsel for the Local 
Government in the case — the idea of making a profit 
from cultivation on land which had cost five guineas an 
acre, and was covered moreover with such stout trees 
as Mr. Howitt had to fell on his flooded land, was alto- 
gether out of the question. Mr. Howitt accordingly 
retired from the unprofitable business of cultivation, 
and " his nephew and a partner took to cow-keeping ; 
having purchased three cows, with calves by their sides, 
for £30." They sold milk for a time in Melbourne 
and to the labourers on the Heidelberg road — a road 
leading from Melbourne across the Mem Creek to a 
beautiful spot on the river, three or four miles farther 
up. But again the squatters around Melbourne were 
enabled to undersell them from the more favourable 
nature of their tenure ; by and bye, also, the cows gave 
less milk, and after a year's unsuccessful trial of this 
second experiment, the whole lot were sold for £16, as 
cattle were then rapidly falling, and the farm was let 
to a tenant in February 1843. Mr. Howitt's apostro- 
phe to himself, with which he concludes his Personal 
Narrative, as an Australian farmer, and which I shall 
take the liberty to transcribe, is certainly sufficiently 
graphic to prevent all the w T iser portion of his country- 
men from following in his track. K Thou poor, pitiful, 
careworn, fly-bitten, flood-persecuted, grasshopper- 
devoured, Australian farmer, what doest thou in this 
country ? Thou art neither sanctioned by Government, 
nor heaven-permitted ! Away with thee from the land !" 



* These cattle had cost £30. They were at length found, 
advertised, and sold, and, after paying expenses, they only left 
Mr. Howitt four guineas against their original price ! 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 68 



And, accordingly, Mr. Howitt sailed for England, a 
disappointed and ruined man, on the 30th March 
1844* 

But although Mr. Howitt may not have been aware 
of the fact at the time, it was decidedly bad 
policy on his part to purchase as a cultivation farm, 
at the ruinous price of five guineas an acre, a mere 
suburban allotment of heavily timbered and partially 
flood ed land in the immediate vicinity of Melbourne, 
which, however well adapted, from its facility of access 
and beauty of situation, for the villa or country resi- 
dence of a prosperous merchant or substantial citizen, 
to whom the expense of clearing or the loss of a crop 
occasionally would be no object, was altogether un- 
suited for such a purpose ; especially in a country in 
wdiich there were millions of acres of land of the first 
quality for cultivation, above the reach of floods, 
naturally clear of timber, ready for the plough, and 
procurable at the minimum price of a pound an acre, 
although at a considerable distance from the capital. 
But Mr. H. might observe, with great justice, that the 
Government in his time did not afford the agricultural 
emigrant a chance of purchasing land of this descrip- 
tion, as it was chiefly suburban allotments, that were 
expected to fetch a ruinous price, that were then put 
up to public sale. 

Had Mr. H. only had the good fortune to have 
arrived in the province a year or two after he left it, 
the team of bullocks for which he paid £30 in 1840 
would have been procurable for £10, and the £30 
which he paid for three cows with calves by their sides, 
would have brought him from twelve to fifteen head of 
cattle equally good ; while the wages of labour and the 



* " At the termination of this year, (Feb. 1844,) my nephew 
gave up the farm, and we relet it. I need not say that from first 
to last our Colonial life and farming experience had been one 
series of un propitious and calamitous circumstances. These, 
whether sufficient in themselves or not, decided us to quit the 
country." — Howitt, p. 109. 



64 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



price of provisions would have been reduced at least 
one-half. But I agree with him entirely in ascribing 
his failure to the insane policy of the Local Government 
in regard to the disposal of waste land ; and in the 
following deeply affecting sentiments, to which he 
gives painful and indignant utterance, I entirely 
concur. 

" What years of man's best season ; what energy of 
our manhood ; what patrimony of careful ancestors ; 
what time wearily passed in expatriation by land and 
sea ; what patient toil and sweat of industry ; what 
wear and tear of heart and brains, have been cast away 
as nothing, through the weakness of a confiding and 
deluded people, and the blind experimental enactments 
of a distant and incapable Government!"* And 
again — 

" Possessing a most delicious climate, and a soil not 
to be despised, with a range of glorious pasturage 
almost unlimited ; most abundantly furnished by nature 
and Providence with good, and the means of it ; how 
different under wise, liberal, and efficient management 
had been its history ! 

u As it is, it has in a great measure proved the grave 
of capital, Colonial and British. Sound it is at the 
heart, nevertheless ; a good land and a desirable ; un- 
fortunate only in its maltreated infancy ; still luminous 
through clouds of evil ; and full of intimations of a 
b illiant future destiny." t And again — 

" Until we have a governor of our own, direct from 
England, I could not conscientiously advise any person 
to emigrate hither. With this, and with a more liberal 
and wise policy than has hitherto been pursued towards 
us, then, but not till then, is there any chance of our 
being permanently prosperous."^ 

It will therefore be abundantly evident to the reader, 
hat if the settlement of Phillipsland has already 
attained an unprecedented degree of substantial pros- 



* Howitt, ubi supra, 214. f Do., 246. X Do,, 213. 



HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT. 



65 



perity, it has been in no respect owing to its having 
experienced the fostering care of an enlightened and 
paternal Government. On the contrary, every thing 
imaginable has been done bv the Colonial Government 
to retard its progress, to repress its energies, to crush 
and to ruin its people ; and I consider it as by no 
means one of the least of the many political misde- 
meanors of that Government, that it has virtually 
forced out of the country men possessed of the superior 
intellectual, moral, and physical energies which Mr. 
Howitt certainly exhibited.* It is exclusively to the 
irrepressible energies of a British population that the 
province of Phillipsland ow^es its existence as a depen- 
dency of the empire ; and it is exclusively to these 
energies, notwithstanding the most flagrant misgovern- 
ment, that it owes its present prosperity.! But Colonies 



* Considering the gross injustice with which Port Phillip had 
been uniformly treated by Sir George Gipps, and the ruin in 
which the heartless policy of His Excellency had involved nu- 
merous families and individuals in that province, of as respectable 
an origin in society as himself, the self-complacency, or rather the 
modest assurance with which Sir George refers to the unex- 
ampled progress and prosperity of Port Phillip during the previ- 
ous ten years, in his closing Address to the Legislative Council of 
New South Wales, on the 1 '6th November 1845, when he was 
expecting very shortly to leave the Colony, is as marvellous in 
itself as it is remarkable as an attempt to practise on the gulli- 
bility of the public. " Lastly, gentlemen," says His Excellency, 
u I may assert with confidence, and with some degree, I trust, 
of honest exultation, that in no part of the wide dominions of 
the British Crown, at no period within England's history, was a 
Colony planted, and brought to maturity, without expense of any 
sort to the Parent State, surpassing in energy, wealth, and 
character, that which has silently grown up in the course of the 
last ten years within your Southern Boundary^ the settlement of 
Port Phillip." 

f The following are five most instructive notes, very artlessly 
and ingenuously appended to a Return, prepared under the 
direction of the Colonial Secretary of New South Wales, and 
submitted to the Legislative Council of that Colony in the 
month of May 1846, exhibiting the entire amount derived from 
the sales of waste land throughout the territory, including Port 
Phillip, during the ten years from 1836 to 1845, inclusive. No- 

E 



66 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



are not infrequently like large edifices, in which, the 
lowest, and perhaps the most important, tier of stones 
in the building must be buried in the earth out of sight ; 
for the present commanding position of that settlement 
is unquestionably owing, in no small degree, to the 
capital, the enterprise, and the labours of men who 
have themselves been ruined, and are now no longer 
seen on the face of its society. 



thing can more strongly exhibit the flagrant nongovernment of 
the Australian Colonies than the perpetual changes in the ad- 
ministration of the Colonial waste lands which these notes imply. 
Nothing, in fact, seems regular but the constant fluctuation 
which they indicate. And yet, in addition to the uncertainty to 
which the property and undertakings of the colonists are sub- 
jected from these Imperial orders and counter orders, they have 
to bear all the further evils resulting from the folly and incapacity 
of a Colonial Executive under the direction of some " soldier 
officer," whose notions of government are all derived from the 
Horse-Guards and drum-head Courts-martial, and whose only 
object, like that of a Turkish Pacha, is to recommend himself to 
his Grand Seignior, the Secretary of State, as a first-rate col- 
lector of revenue from an ill-governed and oppressed people. 
Note. — In the year 1831, Lord Ripon's Regulations for the 

abolition of Free Grants, and the sale by auction of all Crown 

Lands, were first promulgated in the Colony. 
1839. — In this year the minimum price was raised from 5s. to 

12s. an acre, but did not extend to lands previously advertised 

at the former rate, of which there was a very large quantity at 

the time. 

1841. — In this year the system of sale at a fixed price of £\ per 
acre was introduced into the district of Port Phillip. 

1842. — In this year the system of sale by auction was resumed 
throughout the Colony, at a minimum upset price of 12s, per 
acre for country lands, with liberty to select portions not bid 
for at the upset price. 

1843 In this year the minimum price was raised to £1 per 

acre, by the Act of the Imperial Parliament, 5th and 6th 
Victoria, cap. 36, with liberty to select at the upset price 
country portions put up to auction and not bid for, or on which 
the deposit had been forfeited. 



CHAPTEE III. 



MELBOURNE AND THE SURBOIJNDING COUNTRY, OR THE DISTRICT 
OF BOURKE. 

For four or five years past, and especially of late, 
there lias been a regular steam communication by sea 
between Sydney and Melbourne, the distance being 
nearly the same as by land, about (300 miles. The 
vessel at present on the course is the " Shamrock," a 
powerful iron steam-ship of 200 tons, (belonging to 
the Hunter's River Steam Navigation Company of 
Sydney) which leaves Sydney on the 1st of every 
month, and, touching at Twofold Bay, generally per- 
forms the voyage to Melbourne in from three to four 
days. On reaching Melbourne, the 4 * Shamrock" pro- 
ceeds across Bass' Straits to Launceston, in Van 
Diemen's Land, which is only 120 miles overland from 
Hobart Town, the capital of the island, and returns 
again to Melbourne before proceeding to Sydney ; — 
thereby maintaining a constant and expeditious com- 
munication between Sydney and Hobart Town, as well 
as between both of these colonial capitals and Mel- 
bourne. 

This arrangement has only been of recent origin, 
and lias arisen, in great measure, from a state of things 
which illustrates very strongly the character and effects 
of the land policy of Sir George Gipps, while it shows 
how completely the dearest interests and prospects of 
the unfortunate inhabitants of the Australian colonies 
are at the mercy of their irresponsible and arbitrary 
Governors. The colonists of Phillipsland have all 
along been accustomed, and perhaps very justly too, 
to take considerable credit to themselves from the cir- 



68 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



cu instance of their free and reputable origin as com- 
pared with that of New South Wales, which was so 
long a mere penal settlement for the British empire ; 
for although the masters of assigned convict-servants 
in New South AYales were allowed to carry these ser- 
vants along with them if they removed — as a consider- 
able number did — into Phillipsland, only a very small 
number of this class of persons ever found their way 
into that part of the territory in virtue of this permis- 
sion.* And if the land revenue of the province, in so 
far as available for the purposes of immigration, had 
been duly expended in introducing free immigrants of 
the industrious classes into Phillipsland, and not into 
Sydney and the territory of New South Wales gener- 
ally, this important distinction would have been con- 
tinued. But the abstraction of so very large a propor- 
tion, as I have shown above, of the land revenue of 
the Southern province, for objects in which it had no 
immediate interest, not only raised the price of labour 
to an exorbitant height at the outset of the settlement, 
but has left it, now that immigration has virtually ceased, 
while the stock in the district has increased tenfold, 
without anything like the requisite supply of labour for 
the management of the vast herds and flocks that are 
now depasturing on its territory. In these circum- 
stances, Associations of the stockholders of Phillipsland 
have recently been formed at Melbourne, Geelong, and 
Portland, for the importation of expiree convict labourers 
from Van Diemen's Land, and this species of immigra- 
tion has for months past been going on at the rate of 
from 200 to 300 every month ; the immigrants having a 
free passage given them across the Straits at the ex- 



* According to the census of the 2d March 1841, the population 
of Port Phillip amounted altogether to 11,738, of which number 
only 524 were convicts, all of whom had been introduced from 
New South Wales, with their masters' sheep and cattle. But 
there were no further importations of convicts after that period, 
although the province received an accession to its population, from 
free emigration alone, before the close of the year 1 842, of not 
fewer than 15,000. 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 69 



pense of the respective Associations, with rations for so 
many days after their arrival, and permission to hire 
themselves, at the current rate of wages, to whatever 
masters they please. The respectable inhabitants of 
Melbourne have in vain remonstrated against these 
successive importations, by the " Shamrock" and other 
vessels in the trade, which are so repugnant to the 
favourite theory of their colonial constitution — a colony 
of free, and not of convict origin — and the moral effects 
of which have already been seen and felt in the statis- 
tics of crime in the province. u But what else can the 
stockholders do in the circumstances in which the 
Government has placed them ?" is the argument which 
never fails eventually to shut the mouths of these in- 
dignant and patriotic remonstrants. 

The distance from the Heads of Port Phillip to the 
mouth of the Yarra-Yarra River, on the right bank of 
which the town of Melbourne is situated, is nearly forty 
miles in a north-north-easterly direction, while the 
average breadth of the gulf or inlet is from fifteen to 
twenty. About half-way up, it throws off an arm, 
more than ten miles wide at its commencement, which 
runs up to the westward in a line parallel to that of 
the coast; and from the head of this western arm, at 
Geelong, the distance to the eastern shore of the gulf 
is not less than forty miles. So large an expanse of 
tidal water necessarily creates a strong current both 
inwards and outwards, at particular times of the tide, 
at the narrow entrance ; and although there is no real 
danger to experienced and cautious navigators, who 
will always select the proper time for effecting either 
an entrance or an exit, it requires occasionally no 
ordinary degree of nerve to look unmoved at kt the 
meeting of the waters," when wind and tide are each 
striving for the mastery in the narrow gorge. There is 
a lighthouse on a point of land about three miles within 
the entrance, called Shortland's Bluff, which is visible 
to vessels a few miles off at sea, when right abreast of 
the entrance ; but it cannot be said to serve as a guide 
from a distance to the entrance itself. 



70 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



That entrance, with the great extent of navigable 
water within, forms a magnificent avenue to the capital 
of a great country, which Phillipsland is unquestion- 
ably destined to become. The land to the westward 
is generally low, although the granitic summits of 
Station Peak, and the range of mountains connected 
with it, to the northward of the western arm. are visible 
from a great distance ; while Arthur's Seat and the 
Dandenong Range, that divides the Port Phillip country 
from Western Port, shoot up their bold outlines into 
the eastern sky. 

Towards the northern extremity of the harbour, a 
peninsula runs out into the gulf from the western shore, 
with another lighthouse on its point, to the northward 
of which there is a bay called Hobson's Bay, where 
vessels of large size lie at anchor. The Yarra-Yarra 
River, which leads up to Melbourne, and which is 
navigable for vessels of not more than 200 tons, and 
also another river, called the Murriburnong, or Salt 
Water River, both empty themselves into a narrow 
prolongation of Hobson's Bay to the northward of the 
peninsula. It w r as on that peninsula, which consists of 
very flat land, with a slight inclination to the water, 
that Sir Richard Bourke intended that the future capital 
of the province should be situated ; and he accordingly 
caused a township to be laid oft in that locality, which 
he called Williamstown, in honour of his late Majesty; 
giving the name of Melbourne — that of his Prime 
Minister for the time being — to what he thought would 
merely be a country village a few miles inland. But 
the Genius of our Constitution seems to have so ordered 
it that these names should afford the future youth of 
Phillipsland a vivid representation of our complex 
political system : for Melbourne, the minister's town, 
has become, beyond all comparison, the more important 
of the two, and has engrossed all the practical powers 
of government; while Williamstown, the king's, is allow- 
ed to reign in solitary majesty — a mere venerable idea, 
but of no real weight or influence in the State. 

I am disposed, however, to agree with Sir Richard 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 



71 



Bourke in thinking that William stown would have 
been a much more eligible situation for the commercial 
capital of the province than Melbourne. It is close to 
the shipping, from which Melbourne is distant eight or 
nine miles by water, although not so much by land. 
It presents a sufficient extent of level land, washed on 
three sides by the salt water, for all purposes ; and the 
situation would unquestionably have been as salubrious 
as it is commanding. The only objection to Williams- 
town was the want of fresh water on the spot ; but how 
few large towns either in Europe or in America have 
a sufficient supply of fresh water in their immediate 
vicinity, and without having recourse to artificial means 
to bring it from some distance ? The proceeds of the 
first Government sale of town allotments in Williams- 
town, had Sir Richard Bourke's original intention been 
strongly adhered to and carried out, would have been 
sufficient to have supplied the means of providing the 
inhabitants with a temporary supply of that indispen- 
sable article of subsistence for the first years of the 
settlement, till permanent works of the requisite magni- 
tude for the increasing population of a colonial capital 
could be constructed at the public expense. Again, the 
money that has been already expended for the trans- 
shipment and carriage of goods from vessels in Hob- 
son's Bay to Melbourne, in addition to the serious 
losses which the mercantile community of the provin- 
cial capital have hitherto sustained from being so far 
distant from the shipping, independently of the much 
greater facility of forming a large town in the locality 
of Ys illiamstown than in that of Melbourne, would have 
been sufficient to have brought an abundant and per- 
manent supply of fresh water from the Yarra-Yarra 
River into Williamstown, even if it had been four times 
as large as Melbourne is now. But one is constantly 
reminded in these Australian colonies of the utter want 
of that foresight and decision on the part of the Local 
Government, which are so indispensably necessary 
both to guide and to husband the energies of a rapidly 
increasing population, and the lack of which at the 



72 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



proper moment will subject succeeding generations to 
incalculable inconvenience and expense. Doubtless 
the ledge of rocks that crosses the tortuous channel of 
the Yarra-Yarra River below Melbourne can be re- 
moved by blasting, and the sandbank at its mouth kept 
down, so as to admit the passage of large vessels, by 
a dredging-machine; while a spacious dock can certainly 
be excavated in the low ground opposite the town, as 
easily as in most places where there is no natural 
harbour ; and the river can be banked in, like the Rhine 
in Holland and the Po in Italy, for miles up, so as not 
to flood all the lower parts of the town in seasons of 
inundation, nor to cover the extensive marshes in the 
vicinity that must necessarily generate malaria to a 
considerable degree in the heat of an Australian 
summer ; — all these things are doubtless practicable ; 
but why the inhabitants of the present capital should 
have been subjected to the enormous expense which 
these necessary improvements must imply, when a 
situation was immediately available for the construc- 
tion of a great commercial capital, presenting such a 
combination of advantages for commerce, for salubrity, 
and for facility of construction, as that of Williams- 
town, and in which, moreover, all that was required 
to ensure a copious supply of water was a few miles of 
iron pipes, to be laid down along a comparatively level 
surface, I confess I am at a loss to discover. In all 
likelihood, (such, at least, is the common report) the 
temporary convenience, or rather the private interest, 
of some petty official unfortunately stood in the way, 
and the interests of the public and of posterity were 
consequently overlooked. 

The town of Melbourne, the capital of Phillipsland, 
is situated on the right bank of the river Yarra-Yarra. 
Yarra is the native name of a species of eucalyptus, 
with a white bark and a lofty stem, w 7 hich lines and 
adorns the banks of many of the rivers of the northern 
interior, as, for instance, the Lachlan, the Murrum- 
bidgee, and the Darling ; and the name of the river 
Yarra-Yarra w r ould therefore seem to indicate not 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 



73 



merely the abundance of that beautiful species of 
eucalyptus on its banks, but the northern origin of the 
first aboriginal inhabitants of the district. This con- 
jecture amounts almost to certainty, from the fact that 
two other streams in the immediate neighbourhood have 
the same names as two streams of the same character 
at a vast distance in the northern interior ; I mean the 
Barwon river and the Moonee Ponds. I have already 
had occasion to mention the Barwon river (which rises 
in the Marrack hills, and falls into the Great Southern 
Ocean a few miles to the westward of the entrance 
of Port Phillip,) as one of the streams of Phillips- 
land ; but there is a river of the same name in the 
northern interior, between the parallel of 30° S. and 
the tropic of Capricorn, which has recently been iden- 
tified, by a son of Sir Thomas Mitchell's, with the 
Upper Darling ; and one of the tributaries of that 
northern river is called the Mooni Creek, while there 
is also a minor stream, a tributary of the Yarra-Yarra, 
below Melbourne, which is known by its native name 
as the Moonee Ponds. It would therefore appear that 
the first aboriginal inhabitants of Phillipsland arrived 
in that part of the Australian continent from the north- 
ward, by the long valley or rather desert of the Dar- 
ling, and that, on reaching the confluence of that river 
with the Murray, they ascended the latter stream and 
crossed the country in a southerly direction to the 
ocean — giving the rivers of their beautiful new-found 
land the names of those of which their fathers had 
doubtless told them so often in the far north. 

Melbourne consists of a series of streets and lanes 
running parallel to the course of the river, the streets 
being each a hundred feet wide and the lanes thirty, 
and each street having its diminutive, or lane of the 
same name, immediately behind it. Thus, Flinders' 
Street, which faces the river, is backed up by Little 
Flinders' Street ; Collins' Street, by Little Collins' 
Street ; and Bourke Street, by Little Bourke Street, &c. 
It is scarcely necessary to add that this whimsical idea, 
of which it would be superfluous to state the origin, 



74 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



has in no respect proved conducive either to the com- 
fort of the inhabitants or to the progress of the town. 
These streets are crossed at right angles by others, 
which, however, have no diminutives, and of which 
the principal is Elizabeth Street, situated in a hollow 
between two considerable acclivities to the eastward 
and westward, called respectively the Eastern and 
Western Hills ; the course of the river being nearly 
due west. Collins' Street, which is strangely enough 
named after the gallant officer who, when directed to 
form a settlement at Port Phillip, in the year 1803, 
abandoned it and went to Yan Diemen's Land, saying 
" it was all barren, " is the principal street in the town. 
Perhaps the honour was intended by the inhabitants, 
who are rather sensitive on this point, as an expression 
of gratitude to Colonel Collins for having carried the 
convicts away w r ith him ; but if so, it is rather unfor- 
tunate that so many of them should recently have 
found their way back again. There is as yet, how- 
ever, no memorial of any kind in the provincial capital 
in honour of my fellow-countryman, Lieutenant Mur- 
ray, the discoverer of the Port. 

From the very recent origin of the town of Mel- 
bourne, and especially from the manner in which its 
inhabitants have hitherto been treated by the absentee 
Government of New South Wales, it cannot be sup- 
posed that there should already be many fine buildings 
in the place ; for the reader must bear in mind that, 
while that Government realized, in the course of five 
years or thereby, a revenue of nearly £100,000 from 
the sale of town allotments in Melbourne, the whole of 
that revenue was expended for an object in which the 
inhabitants could have no interest whatever ; I mean 
for the importation of free immigrant labourers from 
the mother-country into Sydney — a rival city at the 
distance of six hundred miles ; — for the people of Mel- 
bourne w 7 ere not even allowed a farthing from this 
revenue to make their own streets, but were left to 
drag their bullock- drays and other vehicles in wet 
weather up to the axle in mud along the principal 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUXI ING COUNTRY. 



7.5 



thoroughfares of the town, till they got a Municipal 
Corporation of their own. and formed proper streets at 
their own expense ! Still, however, there is nothing 
that strikes a stranger so much, or that demonstrates 
in so favourable a manner the moral elasticity and the 
vis vitce of the province, as the number and variety of 
respectable buildings of all kinds in this infant town. 
Xot a few of the shops in the principal streets would 
not disgrace any of the fashionable places of business 
in London. The accompanying lithographic sketches 
of a few of these buildings, both public and private, 
are copied, with permission, from the copperplate en- 
gravings of Mr. Ham. jun.. from Birmingham (a son 
of the Rev. John Ham. the Baptist minister of Mel- 
bourne.) who has for some time past been practising 
his profession in the provincial capital with superior 
ability, and, I am happy to add, with proportionate 
success. 

The material commonly used for building in Mel- 
bourne was originally wood : it is now brick, and not 
a few of the better class of houses of this material are 
stuccoed. But as several valuable kinds of stone have 
recently been discovered in the vicinity of the town, 
there seems to be a growing disposition to make use 
of this more durable material, especially for buildings 
of any pretensions. The first description of stone, 
available for building purposes, that was discovered in 
the district, was a species of argillaceous sandstone, of 
a dark brown colour and peculiarly gloomy aspect. 
The Episcopal Church on the Western Hill, an un- 
finished structure, the Custom House, and the Gaol, 
are all built of this material. There is also a dark 
blue whinstone and a light greyish granite procurable 
in the neighbourhood, the judicious combination of 
which in the same building, as in the new Government 
Offices, has a fine effect* The granite front reminds 
one of the new town of Aberdeen in Scotland, and the 
city of Boston in America ; in both of which localities 
granite of a similar hue is in extensive use for build- 
ing. But a whitish sandstone, of excellent quality, has 



76 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



also been discovered on the Merri Creek within the 
last few months, and of this material the bridge across 
the Yarra-Yarra river, which is now in progress, was 
to be constructed. That bridge is to be a single arch 
of 150 feet span and 30 feet in width, and is to cost 
£10,000. "The width of the river," observes Mr. 
David Lennox, the Superintendent of bridges, " I find 
to be one hundred and sixty feet, as marked by Mr. 
Surveyor Hoddle. A bridge of one arch at this place 
will have the finest appearance of any in the British do- 
minions : the banks of the river being so low that the 
bridge will all appear above the surface." * As Mr. 
Lennox superintended the erection of a bridge over 
the Severn, near the city of Gloucester, in England, 
of the same span as the one now erecting over the 
Yarra-Yarra, agreeably to the plan and specification 
of the eminent architect and engineer, Mr. Telford, 
(which, however, cost £60,000,) this is not to be 
understood by the reader as a mere specimen of 
Colonial bounce. 

There are churches of respectable appearance, both 
externally and internally, for the different communions 
into which the church-going portion of the population 
of Melbourne is divided, viz., Episcopalians, Presby- 
terians, Roman Catholics, Independents, Methodists, 
and Baptists. There is a Mechanics' Institution, with 
a stone building of goodly proportions, of which a part 
has hitherto been let for the temporary accommodation 
of the Town Council ; and a Botanic Garden is now 
in progress in one of the beautiful bends of the Yarra- 
Yarra above the town. There is a Squatters' Club 
for the elite of that class of the community, some of 
whom, especially in the days of high prices for land 
and stock, were sufficiently aristocratic in their notions 
to have been much more than half inclined to intro- 
duce an order of grazing nobility, with the game-laws 



* Report of the Select Committee of the Legislative Council 
of New Sooth Wales for the year 1845, on the Bridge over the 
Yarra-Yarra, with Appendix. 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 77 

and the feudal tenures, if they could. But the bad 
times and the Insolvent Court unfortunately made sad 
havoc among this class of Colonial aspirants ; "for the 
rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds 
blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell ; and great 
was the fall of it." The Bank of Australasia and the 
Union Bank of Australia have each establishments, 
with handsome premises, especially the latter, in Mel- 
bourne ; and the steam flour-mills and iron-foundries, 
the horse-bazaars, and the extensive wool-stores and 
warehouses of the place would do credit to many a 
European town of five centuries old and of ten times 
the population. There is a Queen's Theatre also for 
those who frequent such places of amusement, and a 
Jockey Club, with a Race-course, that never-failing 
accompaniment of Australian civilization, in the 
vicinity. There are four newspapers published in 
Melbourne — the Patriot, a daily paper, and the Herala\ 
the Argus, and the Gazette, which are all published 
either twice or thrice a week. There is certainly no 
lack of ability in certain of these papers, and they have 
occasionally rendered good service to the public ; but 
they have unfortunately neutralized their own influence 
very much, and set the worst possible example to the 
community, by that vice of the Colonial press generally, 
their perpetual carping at each other. 

Considering the importance of the province, and the 
extraordinary amount of revenue that has hitherto 
been derived from it, there are as yet comparatively 
few public buildings or public works of any kind — I 
mean such as have been erected or constructed by the 
Government — either in Melbourne or in the province 
generally. This might appear rather unaccountable 
to any person who would take the trouble to look over 
the votes and appropriations of the Legislative Council 
of the Colony for the last six or seven years ; for in 
each successive year during that period there have 
been considerable sums appropriated for public works 
and buildings of various descriptions at Port Phillip, 
But these sums, although appropriated by the Council, 



78 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



were for the most part never expended by the Execu- 
tive, on the plea that labour of all kinds was too high 
priced at Port Phillip, and that the works and build- 
ings in question would consequently have cost too 
much. And why was labour so high priced in that 
part of the territory ? Why, because the Government, 
instead of expending the Land Revenue of the province 
in importing labour for the direct benefit of its inhabit- 
ants, had expended that revenue on immigration into 
New South Wales! It is this systematic and inexcus- 
able neglect of the proper interests of their adopted 
country that has transformed the inhabitants of Phil- 
lipsland into Repealers to a man — I mean, of course, 
Repealers of the Union of that province with New 
South Wales. 

The population of Melbourne amounts already, as I 
have stated above, to 10,974 persons, and consists of 
Government officers and clerks, professional men, 
merchants, shopkeepers, artizans, and labourers, in the 
usual proportions. The town is divided into four 
wards, and is under the municipal government of a 
Corporation, consisting of a Mayor, four Aldermen or 
Bcullies, and twelve Town Councillors ; and it is no- 
thing but justice to this truly respectable body to state 
that, with extremely limited means > and in circum- 
stances exceedingly unfavourable, they have done 
everything for the improvement and good government 
of the town that enlightened zeal for the public welfare 
could be expected to accomplish. The change for the 
better that had been effected on the general appearance 
of the town during the three years that the Municipal 
Corporation had been in existence, previous to my 
last visit to the province, in the year 1846, was truly 
wonderful. The first Mayor of Melbourne (who held 
the office two years) was Henry Condell, Esq., a brewer 
from Tan Diemen's Lend, but originally from Edin- 
burgh ; the second was H. Moor, Esq., an able and 
successful solicitor in the province ; and the third, 
whose period of office would expire on the 9 th ol 
November last, was Dr. Palmer, a retired physician 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 



79 



and a gentleman of superior abilities and acquire- 
ments. 

The situation of Melbourne is decidedly good, and 
the beautiful green appearance of the hills on which it 
is built, with a picturesque and never-failing river flow- 
ing in front of them, must have appeared peculiarly 
attractive to the first settlers from Van Diemen's Land ; 
with whom the selection of a proper site for a Colonial 
capital would certainly be the last subject they would be 
likely to think of. The country immediately around 
the town is rather of a light soil and thinly wooded, but 
the wood is generally of that umbrageous and orna- 
mental character which reminds one of the park sce- 
nery of the mother-country, and is altogether unlike 
the tall naked stems that shoot up their uninteresting 
forms in the thick forests around Sydney. But the 
principal source of attraction near Melbourne, as is evi- 
dent from the many picturesque and tasteful villas that 
already line its banks for miles above the town, is the 
Yarra-Yarra River ; of which the following account, 
from the pen of his Honour, C. J. Latrobe, Esq., the 
present Superintendent of Port Phillip, will, doubtless, 
not be uninteresting to the European reader. It is 
contained in a communication from the Superintendent 
to the Colonial Secretary, on the subject of the bridge 
now erecting over the river, and forms part of the cor- 
respondence attached to the Report of the Select Com- 
mittee of the Legislative Council on that subject, 

Of the source and upper course of the River Yarra-Yarra, we 
at present know nothing.* There is every probability that it will 
be found to be remote, and situated among the offsets of the 
Snowy Alps to the eastward. But up to the point where it has 
been surveyed, it presents pretty much the uniform character of 
a constant flowing stream, from a chain and a half to two chains 
in breadth, and eight or ten feet in depth ; sunk in ordinary sea- 
sons beneath abrupt and wooded banks. Occasionally, in the 
known portion of its upper course, its bed is traversed by a ridge 
of sandstone or other soft rock, and as it approaches the vicinity 



* It has since been traced to its source in one of the spurs 
from the Snowy Mountains, as the Superintendent anticipated i 
would. 



80 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



of Melbourne and its estuary, by dykes of trap or iron-stone, the 
most elevated and striking of which occurs at the head of the basin 
at Melbourne. At this point, in ordinary times of the tide, the 
fresh water mingles with that of the bay, which, following the 
lower bends of the river, is nine miles distant. 

In dry seasons, and until the dam was built, the high tide 
would frequently pass this barrier, (*. e. the natural dyke,) and 
flow strongly up the channel, its influence being felt for hours to 
the distance of perhaps a mile above the town. 

Below the point where the River Plenty enters the Yarra, tha 
high banks of the latter are found to border occasional flats, or 
low undulating grounds of various extent, composed of very rich 
alluvial soil ; in the other portions of its course from the above 
point, the river will be seen to be confined within its deep bed at 
the foot of steep sandstone hills, or somewhat elevated flats of 
honeycomb land sprinkled with trap boulders. The valley of the 
Yarra, properly so called, may be said to terminate at Melbourne. 

At this point the bluff' land retires on either hand and gives 
place to a wide tract of country, composed partly of low marsh but 
very slightly raised above the level of the high tides, and partly 
of low undulating sandy rises, through which the Yarra and 
Salt Water River take their course to their junction with the sea. 
From the whole of this level the sea has doubtless retired, leav- 
ing the original coast line exceedingly well-defined in the steep 
scarped banks which bound the low land for many miles. 

Up to the month of December 1839, although the site of Mel- 
bourne had been already occupied by Europeans for four years, 
the fact that the river, whose general features and character I 
have attempted to describe, was subject to occasional heavy 
floods, could only be suspected. That such was the case, might 
be inferred from the character of the alluvial wooded flats occa- 
sionally opening on its banks — the frequent occurrence of ponds 
or lagoons lying in the hollows behind the natural bank, and evi- 
dently fed from time to time from a break at the lower extremity 
by some strong back current — from the accumulation of rubbish 
that the observant might notice in the forks of trees far above the 
level of the stream, or from the reports of the natives. It may 
be remarked also, that those years comprised a period of unusual 
drought throughout the Colony. However, on Christmas day in 
that year, the first flood was witnessed, and since that date up to 
the beginning of the present month, there have been no fewer 
than four ; occurring, as far as I can recollect, at the seasons 
noted below.* All these have been surpassed by that of the cur- 
rent month, and even this, if the testimony of the natives (and, I 
may add, certain phenomena that may be noticed, and are now 
understood, which must have originated in occurrences of a simi- 
lar character, and of no very remote date) can be relied on, is 



* Spring, 1841 ; winter, 1842 ; spring, 1842 ; spring, 1843. 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 



81 



not the highest that may be expected. It will be remarked that 
the floods are not confined to particular seasons ; they have oc- 
curred at every season of the year — in the height of summer and 
the depth of winter, if we may use the term, as well as in the 
spring. In the case of the flood which has just occurred, the 
river had been swelled by the usual equinoctial rains above its 
ordinary height for some days previous to the night between the 
1st and' 2d instant, (October 1844 ;) but it then rose for a few 
hours with a rapidity so unexpected, and with such short warn- 
ing, that even after the flood had gained the opening below the 
hills, and consequently found room for its extension, the water 
rose so high and poured down towards the bay with such ra- 
pidity and in such a volume, that it was with difficulty that 
the people inhabiting the river banks a mile below the basin 
could be withdrawn from danger. The inhabitants of the brick- 
fields and vicinity, at the opening of the valley were in immi- 
nent peril. 

Up the river, above and below Heidelberg, where there are 
many rich alluvial flats, the stream appears to have overflowed 
its high banks and covered the low cultivated ground on every 
side to the depth of 10, 15, or even 20 feet. In parts where 
it was shut in by the hills on either side, it flowed on with 
great velocity with a mean height of 30 feet and upwards above 
the ordinary level ; and reaching the more open country in the 
vicinity of and below the town, rose in the bed of the river to 7 
or 8 feet above the usual level, and in the course of a few hours 
covered the whole of the lower ground to the foot of the bluffs in 
every direction to a mean depth of 2 or 3 feet. 

A simultaneous rise in the tides, caused mainly by the strong 
southerly gales, converted the whole of the lower country, from 
Melbourne to the Salt-water river, into a wide lake. 

There is a story told in Melbourne of some persons 
who had come up to the town in a boat from the bay, 
during one of the high floods of which Mr. Latrobe 
speaks, and who, finding the ground-floor of the inn, in 
which they intended to take up their quarters in the 
lower part of the town, completely under water, entered 
the house by the front windows of the first floor, and 
attached their boat by the painter (the rope by which 
a boat is made fast) to one of the legs of the mahogany 
table in the upper parlour of the inn. At all events, 
there is sufficient evidence of the lack of judgment that 
appears to have distinguished the selection of Mel- 
bourne as the site of a great commercial capital, when 
such a site as Williamstowm was so close at hand. 

• At the distance of four miles from Melbourne in a 

F 



82 



PHILUFSL AND . 



direct line, although, perhaps, at three times that dis- 
tance by the windings of the river, the Yarra-Yarra re- 
ceives as a tributary from the northward the Merri 
Creek ; at four or five miles farther, it receives the 
Darabin Creek, and at six miles beyond the latter 
stream, the Eiver Plenty. These are all mountain - 
streams, or rather torrents, that rise in the Mount Ma- 
cedon Range, and pursue a southerly course till they 
fall into the Yarra-Yarra. There is much good land 
on their banks, although in general pretty heavily 
wooded and thickly covered with rocks — which are all 
evidently of volcanic origin, and have been carried 
down by the torrents from the extinct volcanoes of that 
part of the territory. The soil is a rich black mould, 
and suits admirably for the growth of the vine and of 
all descriptions of European fruit-trees. There are 
many small farms in this part of the country in a highly 
creditable state of cultivation ; and the situation of some 
of the villas, both on the main river and on its tributary 
streams or creeks, is romantic and beautiful in the high- 
est degree. 

During my last visit to Phillipsland, I experienced 
the hospitality of my esteemed friend, P. Macarthur, 
Esq., J. P., a retired surgeon in the army, who re- 
emigrated a few years ago from New South Wales, 
where he had settled in the first instance, to the south- 
ern portion of the territory. He there purchased, I 
presume, at one of the Government sales, 150 acres of 
land on the Merri Creek, at £5 an acre, on which he 
has erected a neat rustic cottage, and assembled around 
him, as the fruits of well-directed and persevering in- 
dustry, many of the comforts, and not a few even of the 
refinements, of civilized life. On the steep banks of 
the Creek — w 7 hich they had previously cleared first of 
heavy timber, and afterwards of numberless trap rocks, 
of all sizes — Dr. Macarthur's four stalwart sons were, at 
the period of my visit, forming terraces for their vines, 
somewhat similar to those I had seen on the sides of 
the steep hills around the city of Stutgardt in Wirtem- 
berg, in the year 1837. Dr. Macarthur has certainly 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 83 

no reason to regret his purchase — now that the bad 
times for the Colony are passed — for land of superior 
quality and in eligible situations, within a short distance 
of the capital, will always fetch a comparatively high 
price ; but having just returned to Melbourne at the 
time, after traversing an extensive portion of the ter- 
ritory, in which, although at a considerable distance 
from the capital, there are millions of acres of the rich- 
est land naturally clear both of timber and rocks, and 
obtainable at present at the Government minimum price 
of a pound an acre, I could not help thinking it ex- 
tremely hard that a meritorious officer with a large fa- 
mily should have been compelled, through a species of 
jugglery on the part of the Local Executive, in the dis- 
posal of their precious commodity, waste land, to ex- 
pend so large an amount both of capital and labour in 
providing for that family a comfortable colonial home. 
Men like Dr. Macarthur — men of superior intelligence 
and of unbending moral and religious principle — 
are the real strength and sinews of a colony, and it is 
the worst policy imaginable to screw out of such men, 
on their arrival from the mother-country, the last shil- 
ling they can afford as the price of their portion of 
waste land, and thereby to hamper them exceedingly 
in all their future operations, if not to expose them to 
distressing anxieties and severe privations. Had Dr. 
Macarthur lost heart over his purchase, like Mr. Howitt, 
during the bad times, or had he been unable, like many 
others of equally respectable standing in society, to bear 
up under the pressure of these trying times, what would 
have been the consequence ? Why, his land, with all 
its improvements, would have been sold for the merest 
trifle — perhaps to one of his own former servants — and 
he would himself have been completely ruined. 

Another gentleman of the same name, David Macar- 
thur, Esq., Manager of the Port Phillip Branch of the 
Bank of Australasia, carried me out with him — during 
my short stay at Melbourne in 1846 — to Heidelberg, a 
favourite locality situated a few miles farther up the river, 
where Mr. M. has a fancy-farm, of about seventy acres, 
and the finest garden I had seen in the province. The, 



84 



THILLIPSLAND. 



locality was named by a gentleman who had resided for 
some time in the German city, and it certainly bears 
some resemblance to the remarkable scenery around 
the real Heidelberg ; the left bank of the Yarra rising 
up steep and abrupt from the river to a considerable 
elevation, like that of the Neckar, while the opposite 
bank, like that of the German river, also presents oc- 
casional slopes, available alike for cultivation and pas- 
ture, and descending gradually to the water's edge. 
Mr. Macarthur's farm consists of one of these sloping 
declivities, his garden being situated at the farther ex- 
tremity of it, with the Yarra- Yarra sweeping beauti- 
fully around it. There are, doubtless, no such magni- 
ficent ruins in the vicinity as those of the famous 
Schloss or Castle of the Elector Palatine near the real 
Heidelberg, overlooking the peaceful stream of the 
Neckar, winding along the mountain-valley far below ; 
neither are there any such monuments of magnificent 
folly as the famous Heidelberg tun. which is still pre- 
served in a part of the ruins, with a fac-simile of the 
Elector's stout dwarf close beside it, who is said to have 
regularly drunk fifteen bottles of " Rhcin-wein" every 
day at the expense of the great Elector ; — but I con- 
fess the poetry of the future, with its smiling fields and 
its peaceful population, and its village-spires peeping 
out from every romantic glen of the Australian river, 
is quite as interesting to me as all the boasted poetry 
of the past, with its semi-barbarous robber-chieftains, 
each inhabiting his impregnable hill-fort, and waging 
war with all mankind but the miserable serfs of his own 
narrow valley on the Xeckar or the Rhine. At all 
events, there are the same exuberant elements of na- 
tural beauty in the one case as there are in the other, 
and the same horn of plenty is held forth in both by an 
all -bountiful Providence to an industrious and virtuous 
population. 

There is a remarkably pleasant villa, in the style, I 
presume, of an Indian bungalow, which I visited, along 
with one of the aldermen of Melbourne, on the left bank 
of the river, a little above the town, the property and 
residence of Major Davidson, a retired officer of the 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 85 



Indian army, who has settled in Phillipsland, and to 
whom, for his public spirit in various ways, the pro- 
vince is under considerable obligations. I had also the 
pleasure, along with the Rev. Mr. Ham — who had 
kindly accompanied me to see a school for the abo- 
rigines on the Merri Creek — of visiting my friend, G, 
A. Robinson, Esq., Chief Protector of the aborigines, 
who resides in a delightful villa, a few miles farther up 
the river on the same side. The river is navigable for 
a long way above the town, and a beautiful reach, with 
tall trees on either bank, extends for a considerable 
distance to the right and left of Mr. Robinson's hand- 
some cottage, which is most tastefully built on the sum- 
mit of an eminence overlooking the river, with the 
town of Melbourne, at from two to three miles distant, 
in sight. Mr. R. has only twenty acres altogether, 
which cost him — of course in the dear times — not less 
than £40 an acre. The soil is light and gravelly, and 
not to be compared with that of Dr. Macarthurs farm 
on the Merri Creek ; but it is not the land, with a view 
to its productiveness, but the splendid situation that 
sensible people pay for in such cases. On reaching 
the river bank on the opposite side, we had to tie up 
our horses to a tree and cooey* for a boat, and we were 

* Cooey is the aboriginal mode of calling out to any person at 
a distance, whether visible or not, in the forest. The sound is 
made by dwelling on the first syllable, and pronouncing the se- 
cond with a short, sharp, rising inflexion. It is much easier 
made, and is heard to a much greater distance than the English 
holla ! and is, consequently, in universal use among the colonists. 
It is often absolutely necessary for one's personal safety to 
cooey in approaching a farm-house or grazing station in the 
forest, especially at night, as one is otherwise likely to be sur- 
rounded by a troop of fierce dogs, who may not be aware of his 
honest intentions or of his previous acquaintance with their mas- 
ter ; and when one has lost his way in the woods, or is in search 
of any person who is either known or supposed to have gone 
astray, the cooey is uttered from time to time until it is returned. 
There is a story current in the colony of a party of native born 
colonists being in London, one of whom, a young lady, if I re- 
collect aright, was accidentally separated from the rest, in the 
endless stream of pedestrians and vehicles of all descriptions, at 
the intersection of Fleet Street with the broad avenue leading 



86 



PHILLIPSLA^. 



Towed across again before returning to town. This, 
however, must be rather inconvenient occasionally ; as, 
for instance — and this is by no means an uncommon case 
in the colony — when the boat has been borrowed by a 
neighbour. In such circumstances, especially when 
one has ridden far and is very hungry, the finest scenery 
loses all its charms, in comparison with those of an in- 
habited house on the right bank of the river. 

There are two pleasant villages on the eastern shore 
of the northern extremity of the bay or harbour of 
Port Phillip, named respectively St. Kilda and Brigh- 
ton — the former about two or three, and the latter about 
six miles from Melbourne — in both of which there is 
"also a considerable number of rural villas and cottages 
orne'es, the residences, either constant or occasional, of 
respectable persons in business in the town. St. Kilda 
is the first point on the bay to the eastward, where the 
land is sufficiently elevated to be above the reach of 
all land-floods ; and the terrace to seaward, in front of 
the line of houses along the bay, both there and at 
Brighton, must at all seasons, in so fine a climate as 
that of Phillipsland, form a delightful promenade. Bat 
the finest scenery I beheld in either locality was the 
moral scenery I had the pleasure of beholding on the 
well-cultivated farm of a humble fellow-countryman of 
my own at Brighton, of whose colonial history I beg 
to present the following sketch to the intelligent reader, 
as an antidote to some at least of the Impressions of 
Australia Felix, by Mr. Richard Howitt. 

Mr. John M'Millan is a native of Skipness, and his 
wife of Tarbet, in the Western Highlands of Scotland. 
Having an increasing family, and no means of provid- 
ing for their subsistence in either of these localities, he 



to Blackfriar's Bridge. When they were all in great consterna- 
tion and perplexity at the circumstance, it occurred to one of the 
party to cooey, and the well-known sound, with its ten thousand 
Australian associations, being at once recognised and responded 
to, a reunion of the party took place immediately, doubtless to the 
great wonderment of the surrounding Londoners, who would pro- 
bably suppose they were all fit for Bedlam. 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 87 

had crossed over to the Lowlands, and become, like 
many other Highlanders in the large towns of Scotland, 
a porter on the streets of my native town of Greenock. 
In this precarious situation he had been for six years, 
supporting his family with great difficulty, when he 
obtained a free passage by the David Clarke, one of 
the Government Bounty Emigrant ships, for himself 
and family to Port Phillip, in the year 1840. On his 
arrival in Melbourne he had only from five to ten shil- 
lings in the world, and this small sum he had earned 
by some petty service rendered on board ship to one of 
the cabin passengers ; but he had nine sons and a 
daughter, of whom the eldest was about twenty years 
of age and the youngest in infancy. Labour was high 
priced at the time, as every thing else was, and having 
no mechanical employment he hired himself as a stone- 
mason's labourer at £2 a- week. Those of his sons who 
were fit for service of any kind, were also hired at dif- 
ferent rates of wages to different employers. The 
earnings of the family appear to have been all placed 
in a common purse, and with their first savings a milch 
cow was purchased at £1 2, another and another being 
added successively thereafter at a somewhat similar rate. 
Pasture for these cattle, on the waste land quite close 
to the town, cost nothing, and there were always child- 
ren enough, otherwise unemployed, to tend them ; while 
the active and industrious wife and mother lent her 
valuable services to the common stock by forming a 
dairy. In this way, from the natural increase of the 
cattle, and from successive purchases, the herd had 
increased so amazingly that, in the month of Feb- 
ruary 1846, it amounted to 400 head ; and as this 
was much too large a herd to be grazed any longer on 
the waste land near Melbourne, a Squatting Station 
had been sought for and obtained by some of the young 
men on the Murray River, about 200 miles distant ; 
and as I happened to be spending an afternoon in that 
month at the house of my worthy friend, John M'Pher- 
son, Esq., of the Moonee Ponds, near Melbourne — 
another remarkably successful colonist from the High- 



88 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



lands of Scotland, whose eldest son is now a student of 
divinity in the Free Church College at Edinburgh — 
the herd was actually pointed out to me by Mr. 
M'Pherson as it was passing his house at some distance, 
under charge of the young men, to their station in the 
interior. For such a station the temporary occupant 
has merely to pay £10 a-year to the Government, 
which ensures him an exclusive right of pasturage, 
for the time being, over perhaps from 50 to 100 square 
miles of land. 

In the meantime, a Mr. Dendy from England had, 
in virtue of an Imperial arrangement for the disposal 
of waste land in the colony — which, however, was very 
soon rescinded, to be followed, in all likelihood, by 
another as different as possible, but of course equally 
rational — acquired a right to select 5000 acres of land, 
wherever he chose to take it, at the minimum price of 
a pound an acre ; and as land near Melbourne had 
been selling immediately before, under a very different 
system, however, at from ,£5 to £40 an acre, Mr. 
Dendy made his selection as near the town as possible, 
on the eastern shore of the bay, w r here he planned a 
village or town, which he called Brighton, and laid off 
for sale a number of town allotments, suburban allot- 
ments, and small farms, expecting, doubtless, to realize 
a handsome fortune from his purchase. Whether the 
speculation answered or not, upon the whole, is a matter 
of no consequence to my present purpose ; but of one 
of these small farms, consisting of 42^ acres of land, 
within six miles of Melbourne, Mr. M'Millan became 
the purchaser, at the rate of £7 an acre, the farm hav- 
ing cost him £300, the whole of which he had paid, 
before he got the deeds. The land at Brighton is pretty 
heavily timbered, and a farm adjoining Mr. M'Millan's, 
which was cleared by hired labour, cost £5 an acre to 
clear; but this industrious man and his sons had 
cleared the whole of their land, burning out every tree 
to the roots, dividing the land into convenient paddocks, 
with strong rail fences, and bringing it into a state of 
the highest cultivation. The land at Brighton, as is 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 89 



generally the case near the sea, is light and sandy ; 
but being well situated for rain, it throws up an excel- 
lent crop of wheat under good management, the produce 
realized by Mr. M'Millan having averaged from thirty 
to forty bushels an acre. He had built a brick skilling 
on the land (that is, the back apartments of a cottage, 
to which other apartments of a better description can 
be afterwards added in front, when the occupant gets 
on a little in the world), and in this skilling he was 
living with the portion of his family that still remained 
at home, one of his sons having been unfortunately 
drowned in the Yarra-Yarra shortly after his arrival. 
He had rented the next farm to his own during the 
year 1845, and at the period of my visit he had a stack 
of sixty tons of oaten hay to dispose of in Melbourne, 
and from 700 to 800 bushels of wheat, and he consi- 
dered himself worth altogether £1100, which I had 
reason to believe was a very low estimate of the value 
of his property. 

" For men of small capital," observes Mr. Howitt — 
who, I suppose, will allow me to extend the observa- 
tion to men of no capital at all, so as to include men 
like Mr. M'Millan — " Australia is not at all adapted, 
for such especially as have labour within themselves, working 
men with working children." And again — " As it regards 
the labouring class, for shepherds and hut-keepers, 
Australia is what a soldier once said of the United 
States — it is a full-belly country, and it is nothing 
more." * 

Now, I appeal to the intelligent reader whether, 
keeping in view the case of M'Millan, this is not a 
most erroneous, a most unfounded impression of Australia, 
In which, I would ask, of the British colonies of North 
America — nay, in which of the United States, that full- 
belly country — is a family of mere labourers, landing 
almost without a sixpence, likely to accumulate at least 



* First Impressions of Australia Felix. Bv Richard Howitt, 
pp. 212,213. 



90 



PHILLIPSL ANI) . 



£1100, and to attain the respectable position in society 
that Mr. McMillan is allowed, by all reputable persons 
to whom he is known at Port Phillip, to hare attained, 
as a landed proprietor, a freeholder, and an extensive 
owner of stock, in his adopted country, by the mere 
labour of their hands and their own good management, 
before the close of the fifth year from their arrival ? 

But I shall be told, perhaps, that the case of M'Millan 
is a singular case, and one that is not likely to occur 
again. On the contrary, there are many families and 
individuals throughout the province who have done 
quite as well as M'Millan from similar beginnings, and in 
as short a period ; nay, some have done considerably 
better. And as to any supposed advantages which 
M'Millan enjoyed from the period of his immigra- 
tion, that period was the most unfavourable for com- 
mencing farming in Australia that could possibly have 
been selected, as Mr. Howitt's own experience, as 
detailed in his own book, abundantly proves. For ex- 
ample, the first of M'Millan's stock cost £12 a-head ; 
but cattle equally good can now be purchased in 
Phillipsland at from £1, 10s. to £2 each. The land 
he purchased cost doubtless not more than £7 an acre ; 
but as it was heavily timbered, and as the adjoining 
land cost £5 an acre to clear, it stood him in reality 
£12 an acre ; for he would have earned the difference 
between these amounts if he had been labouring for 
other people. But land of a superior quality to Mac- 
Millan's, naturally clear and ready for the plough, can 
at this moment be procured, to any extent, in the pro- 
vince, for the minimum price of a pound an acre. 
Doubtless, there is some advantage in being within six 
miles of a provincial capital ; but that advantage is not 
sufficient, by any means, to counterbalance the vast 
difference in the first cost of the land : besides grain 
and other farm produce may be conveyed a great dis- 
tance, especially with the present appliances of civiliz- 
ation, at a comparatively small cost. 

At all events, Mr. M'Millan had no idea of there 
being anything peculiar, in the sense of peculiarly 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 91 

favourable for an immigrant, in his own case ; for his 
object in coming to see me in Melbourne, on learning 
that I had arrived there from Sydney and was shortly 
to proceed to England, was to entreat me to use any 
influence I might have in Scotland in endeavouring to 
induce as many as possible of his poor unfortunate 
countrymen to emigrate from the Western Highlands to 
a country in which patient and persevering industry 
was sure to be so richly rewarded. Having himself ex- 
perienced the pressure of extreme poverty, in vainly 
struggling for a time to rear his own large family in 
the Western Highlands, he felt keenly for those who, 
he knew well, were still doomed to experience the 
same bitter and dreary lot ; and being a man of not 
merely a benevolent disposition, but of undoubted 
moral and religious principle, his sympathy appeared 
to me a far more respectable feeling than I should 
otherwise have considered it. As he feelingly con- 
trasted the many comforts which a bountiful Providence 
had accumulated around him, in his own advancing 
years, with the griping penury experienced by many 
most industrious, virtuous, and pious families in his 
native land, the good old man burst into tears, and 
told me that the idea of the misery which he knew so 
many of his poor fellow-countrymen were still endur- 
ing in the Western Highlands of Scotland was so fre- 
quently present to his mind, that it haunted him even 
in his very dreams. The particulars of his case I took 
down from his own lips at Melbourne, and I afterwards 
verified them on the spot, by calling at his cottage 
with one of the members of the Town-Council, who 
had driven me out to Brighton for the purpose. 

The country around Melbourne, on both sides of the 
Yarra-Yarra, is designated the District of Bourke ; 
the inhabitants of that tract of country being incor- 
porated, for certain local purposes, under the provisions 
of an Act of the Imperial Parliament, with powers oi 
local taxation. There is, doubtless, great benefit to be 
derived from such municipal institutions, for the country 
generally, as well as for the larger towns ; and accord- 



92 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



ingly, it has been the practice for the Local Legisla- 
tures in New England, both before and after the war 
of American Independence, to incorporate the inhabit- 
ants of each tract of country forming a neighbourhood, 
for certain local purposes, and with certain well-defined 
powers, according as the stream of population advanced 
into the great wilderness. But for the Imperial Par- 
liament to constitute such corporations in the lump for 
the whole Australian territory, or to empower the 
Governor to do so by his own act and deed, indepen- 
dently of the Local Legislature, was a piece of as great 
absurdity, and exhibited as officious and meddling a 
spirit of interference with the free agency of the colo- 
nists, as if it had been prescribed by Act of Parlia- 
ment at what hours we should take our meals in the 
bush, and how often we should put on a change of rai- 
ment. If institutions of this kind are either neces- 
sary or desirable, the colonists themselves will very 
soon find it out, and their Legislature will be as ready 
to grant, as the people themselves w r ill be to ask for 
them. But to have a whole bale of such political 
strait-waistcoats, for the w T hole colony, made for us by 
the Lords and Commons of England, agreeably to the 
pattern sent up to them by the great cork,* or master- 
tailor in Downing Street, Lord Stanley, was an outrage 
upon the common sense and right feeling of the colo- 
nists, which no plea, derived from the alleged suitable- 
ness or fitness of the institution, could possibly justify. 
But the waistcoats, to continue the metaphor, would 
not fit; the sleeves were either too tight or too w r ide for 
the purposes of coercion, and the Governor was accord- 
ingly obliged to send them down to the Local Legis- 
lature to be altered. But the Legislative Council, as 
might have been expected, would not look either at 
the bale or the bill, and threw them both out at the 
first reading. 



* Cork is the usual name for a master-tailor in the West of 
Scotland. 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 93 

Now it is quite inexplicable to me how the very 
same House of Commons that threw out Sir Robert 
Peel's Coercion Bill for Ireland, should have passed 
Lord Stanley's Coercion Bill for New South Wales 
and Port Phillip ; for I question whether there was a 
single clause in Sir Robert Peel's Irish Bill to be com- 
pared, for the hardship and oppression to which it 
would have subjected all concerned, to the following 
49th clause, commonly called the Algerine Clause, of 
the Constitutional Act of New South Wales passed by 
the Imperial Parliament, at the instance of Lord 
Stanley, in the year 1842. By a previous enactment 
of that statute, the Legislative Council being autho- 
rized to appropriate from the general Revenue the half 
of the whole expenditure required for the Police 
Establishment of the colony, and to assess the differ- 
ent District Councils, in such proportions as they 
should think proper, for the payment of the other half, 
it is declared that " it shall be lawful for the Governor 
to issue warrants under his hand, directed to the 
Treasurers of the several District Councils, requiring 
them, within two calendar months from the receipt of 
the warrant, to pay an amount equal to the sum asses- 
sed upon that District, to such person as the Governor 
shall appoint to receive the same, out of any monies 
in their hands belonging to the District." Then fol- 
lows the famous 49th clause : — 

XL1X. And be it enacted, That if the amount ordered by 
such Warrant to be paid by the Treasurer of any District shall 
not be paid, within two calendar months after the receipt of the 
Warrant, to such person as the Governor shall appoint to receive 
the same, it shall be lawful for the public Treasurer of the said 
Colony, or other proper Officer appointed by the Governor for 
such purpose, to issue his Warrant for levying the amount, or so 
much thereof as shall be in arrear, with all costs and charges of 
such proceeding, by distress and sale of the goods of the said 
Treasurer of the District, and of all or any of the Members of 
the said District Council, and if no sufficient distress can be 
thereby made, then by distress and sale of the goods of any of 
the inhabitants of the said District. 

Where, I ask, is there any precedent or warrant in 
the laws of England, for subjecting the property ot 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



any inhabitant whatever of a city or county to the risk 
of being sold off by the Sheriff to make up the defi- 
ciency in the estimated amount of taxation derivable 
from that city or county % But a principle that would 
be at once indignantly repudiated and scouted by the 
House of Commons, if attempted to be applied by a 
Minister of State to Great Britain or Ireland, is most 
complaisantly passed into law for the Colonies by both 
Houses of Parliament, at the instance of a Secretary 
of State for these unfortunate dependencies. But the 
plain matter of fact is, the two Houses of Parliament 
care very little, if at all, for the Colonies, except when 
some Papineau or Heki — the offspring and creation of 
Downing Street misrule — forces them upon the view of 
the public, and subjects the nation to enormous expense 
to set all to rights again. At all other times, and in 
all other circumstances, the Colonies are left to be 
domineered over at pleasure by the great cork in 
Downing Street, who, it seems, has got the patent for 
making strait- waistcoats for Her Majesty's subjects 
beyond seas. I trust, however, that since, in the rapid 
revolutions of the wheel of political fortune in England, 
we have at length got a Colonial Minister of really 
liberal principles and views, w T e shall soon be able to 
say, nous avons change tout cela. 

To return to the District of Bourke — of which the 
boundaries are well enough defined, although the Dis- 
trict Council that was to bear rule w T ithin them is itself 
defunct — that district is bounded to the westward by 
the Weiraby River, which rises in the Bunninyong 
Range of Mountains, and, pursuing a southerly course, 
falls into Port Phillip near the commencement of the 
western arm, and to the eastward towards Western 
Port by the Dandenong Range. It therefore includes 
the Mount Macedon country to the northward of Mel- 
bourne, and distant from thirty to forty miles. The 
road to that part of the country, (which I gladly ac- 
cepted the invitation of John Aitken, Esq., one of the 
oldest inhabitants of the province, to visit,) crosses the 
Moonee Ponds and winds along the Salt-water River, on 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 



95 



both of which there is much valuable land, which is 
now in progress of occupation, both in small farms and 
villas — a circumstance which adds greatly to the pic- 
turesque character and effect of the scenery ; for as 
the country in this neighbourhood is naturally very 
bare of wood, and as each farm house or villa has at 
least a few trees whether for ornament or use around 
it, these cultivated spots on the face of the landscape 
tend greatly to diversify and to beautify the scene. 

A considerable portion of the road to Mount Mace- 
don traverses what are called Sheep Downs, a com- 
paratively level tract of country, but gently undulat- 
ing ; the soil being light and dry, and producing ex- 
cellent pasture for sheep. Towards Mount Macedon 
the trees become more numerous, although they are 
but very thinly scattered over the Downs. They are 
generally a variety of casuarinae, commonly called 
she-oak by the colonists, and the sighing of the wind 
among the sail-needle-like leaves, that constitute their 
vegetation, produces a melancholy sound, that so 
greatly resembles the rolling of the surf on a distant 
ocean-beach, that I was repeatedly deceived by it for 
a moment, till I recollected that I was much too far 
off to hear any sounds of that kind. 

When searching on foot for his stray bullocks, Mr. 
Richard Howitt had, it seems, got within ten or twelve 
miles of Mount Macedon, which it appears was the 
utmost extent of his peregrinations in Phillipsland ; 
and I have much pleasure in quoting the following 
passage from his book, as indicative of his impressions 
in that part of the country, to the correctness of which 
I can bear ample testimony : — 

" This country had its delights as well as vexations," 
[alluding to the loss of the bullocks, which was doubt- 
less very annoying.} " I saw a great deal of very 
delightful country, when on my return" [after the 
bullocks were found] " I could look about me and 
enjoy it. I was about ten or twelve miles from Mount 
Macedon, and a more picturesque and beautiful region 
was never looked upon. Water there was none, and 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



the trees were all of one kind (she-oak,) but the whole 
country had a delicately smooth, lawn-like surface, 
without scrub or stones. Around me spread a spacious 
plain, the she-oaks, a rich silky brown, scattered thinly 
and in clumps ; further off, bounding the plain, knolls, 
slopes, and glens, all of the smoothest outline, crowned 
or sprinkled with the same trees ; and beyond, moun- 
tains and mountain ranges, on which rested deliriously 
the blue of the summer heavens. Some of these 
mountains were wooded to the summits, others revealed 
through openings immeasurable plains, where sheep 
were whitely dotting the landscape, the golden sun- 
shine seen at intervals betwixt the long shadows of the 
she- oaks. There only wanted a good stately river, 
American or English, to make the scene magnificent."* 
And again : "A more splendid and extensive country 
there is not in the world for sheep and cattle than 
Australia Felix. How fat and sleek are its immense 
herds ! I speak not here of the immediate neighbour- 
hood of the town, but of the country generally."! 

I was accompanied and driven out to the residence 
of Mr. Aitken by James Malcolm, Esq., an extensive 
proprietor in Phillipsland. He and Mr. Aitken, both 
Scotsmen, had been t wo of the earliest arrivals from Van 
Diemen's Land, and they have been two of the most 
successful colonists in the country. For years after 
their arrival their lodging and fare were doubtless of 
the simplest kind imaginable — a hut formed of a few 
sheets of bark, for both kitchen and parlour, with their 
shepherd's watchbox to sleep in alongside their folded 
flocks, and damper and tea every morning alternating 
from month to month with tea and damper every 
night ; but they now reap the fruits of their former 
privations in wealth honestly acquired, chiefly through 
the natural increase of their flocks and herds on the 
hills and valleys of Australia. 



* Howitt's Impressions of Australia Felix, p. 108. 
+ Ibid, p. 115. 



MELBOURNE AND SUPJEiOU>7DING COUNTRY. 



97 



Mr. Aitken's silvan cottage is situated on the face of 
a hill of volcanic origin, of which the soil is of a deep 
chocolate colour, consisting exclusively of decomposed 
lava. Soil of this kind is always of exuberant fertility, 
as indeed Mr. Aitken's garden, which is situated on a 
steeper face of the hill than the one on which his house 
is built, abundantly shows ; and. in particular, it is 
admirably adapted for the growth of all descriptions of 
fruit trees, and especially of vines. I went to the 
summit of the hill, immediately behind the house, to 
ascertain whether there were any remains of a crater ; 
but I could find none, although the course of the 
streams of lava that had rolled down the hill was quite 
evident in various parts of the surface in great masses 
of pumice-stone rock or lava still undecomposed. There 
are numerous hills of the same character and origin in 
this part of the country. The highest in the neigh- 
bourhood, which was called Mount Aitken by Sir 
Richard Bourke, in honour of my respected host, is 
about two miles distant from Mr. A.'s house. I walked 
up to its summit, which cannot be less than 700 feet 
high ; and although I was disappointed in the imme- 
diate object of my ascent, in not finding any unequivo- 
cal traces of a crater, I was amply recompensed for 
my toil and trouble in the magnificent prospect which 
the summit afforded, For a vast distance in every 
direction, except where the Mount Macedon Range of 
mountains intercepted the view, a country adapted in 
every respect for the residence of man, gently undu- 
lating, thinly wooded, and beautifully covered with 
rich grass, lay before me. True, there was no river 
rolling along to the ocean : but I could trace the course 
of various rivulets that crossed the plains in various 
directions, which, with proper exertions on the part of 
an industrious population, would easily supply water, at 
all times and in any quantity, both for man and beast. 
I had taken my stand on a vast block of cellular lava 
that had probably formed part of the rim of the 
obliterated crater of the mount, and as my imagination 
naturally reverted to the period when that mountain 

G 



98 



FHILLIPSLAXD. 



summit, and all the others of the same character 
around it, were pouring forth their deluges of liquid 
fire and red-hot ashes on the surrounding plains, I 
could not help thinking how mysterious, and yet how 
beautiful and how beneficent, are the works and ways 
of God — to transform a scene of such extreme desola- 
tion as that neighbourhood must once have exhibited, 
into one of surpassing fertility and loveliness for the 
habitation of man ! Truly He is wonderful in counsel 
and excellent in working ! I could have spent an 
hour or two on the summit of Mount Aitken, enjoying 
the prospect and indulging in such reflections as these, 
with great pleasure ; but I had left Mr. Aitken's hos- 
pitable cottage alone, and without telling any person 
where I was going, before breakfast, and had to hurry 
clown again to prevent my disappearance from being 
noticed, as I had found that both the height and the 
distance of the hill somewhat exceeded my calculations. 
In doing so, however, I liad to provide myself with the 
branch of a tree as a guide-pole to regulate my de- 
scent, for the long dry grass on the steep sides of the 
hill was very slippery. I had been led, from my own 
observations in another part of the country, to conclude 
that the volcanic action, of which there are such exten- 
sive evidences over a great part of the surface of 
Phiilipsland, must have been of a very ancient date — 
and I am still strongly inclined to believe that this has 
been the case generally ; but a gentleman, whom I met 
with at Mr. Aitken's, told me that the black natives of 
the neighbourhood allege that their grandfathers had 
seen a particular mountain in the district on fire. 

I met at Mr. Aitken's an English gentleman from 
Van Diemen's Land on his way to his station in the 
interior, who I afterwards learned had assisted Mr. A. 
at his outset in the world in that colony, but had 
atterwards lost the whole of his own large property 
there in the bad times ; and Mr. A. was now repaying 
the kindness by enabling him to commence afresh as 
a stockholder in Phiilipsland, about seventy miles 
farther up the country. There also happened to be at 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 99 



Mr. A.'s when I arrived a Mr. Robertson, another 
Scotch immigrant from Tan Diemen's Land, and now 
the proprietor of a large squatting station a few miles 
off in the Mount Macedon district ; and as my object 
in visiting that part of the country was principally to 
ascertain the condition and capabilities of the district 
as to the supply of the ordinances of religion agreeably 
to the hallowed customs and institutions of our fore- 
fathers, for my Scottish fellow-countrymen who were 
thinly scattered over its extensive surface. I arranged 
with Mr. R. to perform divine service on the following 
day, which was Sabbath, at the Police Station, about 
eight miles distant — Mr. E. willingly undertaking to 
make the requisite arrangements on his way home 
in the evening, and to inform those of his neighbours 
whom he could reach in time on the following morning. 
At the time appointed, therefore, on the following day, 
my friend Mr. Malcolm and myself proceeded, along 
with Mr. A.'s family, chiefly on horseback, to the 
place appointed, where I had the pleasure of addressing 
the words of eternal life to a congregation of upwards 
of forty persons, including a few Scotch troopers of the 
Mounted Police, hastily assembled in the residence of 
the Crown Lands' Commissioner of the District, who 
happened, however, to be absent at the time. I was 
told that divine service had only been performed once 
before in that part of the country, and Mr. Robertson 
assured me, that if an acceptable pastor could be settled 
in the district, a considerable congregation could be 
assembled regularly in that central locality, and that 
the requisite exertions would willingly be made for his 
support. It is indispensably necessary, however, that 
a minister of religion in such stations should be sent, 
forth in the first instance as a Missionary, to be sup- 
ported for a time from home : and from upwards of 
twenty years' experience of the utter inefficiency of 
Colonial State Churches, supported from the Public 
Treasury, on the latitudinarian and infidel principle 
that all religions are alike, and all equally deserving of 
State support, which is now the law and practice of the 



100 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



Australian Colonies, it appears to me to be equally 
indispensable that such a pastor should not derive his 
support from the State. 

The Commissioner's residence at the Police Station 
in the Mount Macedon district, is one of the most in- 
teresting and beautiful spots imaginable. It is a grassy 
valley, surrounded by an amphitheatre of mountains, 
with a small rivulet meandering in the hollow ; and as 
the congregation, most of whom had come on horse- 
back, dispersed to return to their respective places of 
abode, winding each along his own solitary path over 
the green hills, I anticipated with sincere pleasure the 
time when the church-bell would be heard regularly in 
that secluded valley, summoning the scattered inha- 
bitants of the hills and valleys around to the house of 
prayer. 

There were two lively and intelligent young ladies, 
both daughters of the late Mr. Batman, the real dis- 
coverer and patriarch of Phillipsland. residing in Mr. 
Aitken's family at the period of my visit, one of whom 
was on the eve of her marriage to a young gentleman 
from Scotland, who had charge of an extensive squat- 
ting establishment in the neighbourhood for some house 
or company at home. Unfortunately for his family, 
Mr. Batman had died when his children were all very 
young, and his extensive property, which ought to have 
maintained them in independence and affluence, had 
fallen into the hands of the Philistines — I mean the 
Colonial lawyers — who had left his family only the 
scantiest gleanings of his substance. 

On inquiring into the prospects of persons in the 
humbler walks of life in that part of the country, Mr. 
Aitken informed me that he had had a Scotch High- 
lander and his son, of the name of Cameron, in his 
service for five years preceding in the capacity of shep- 
herds — the family, when they hired with him, consist- 
ing of the father, his son about fifteen years of age, and 
a daughter about twelve. He had hired both father 
and son as shepherds, and at the end of five years, when 
they wished to go upon their own hands, as they thought 



MELBOURNE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY. 



101 



they could do better for themselves in that way, they 
had £290 in money to commence with, the whole of 
which they had saved during the period of their service. 

Another Scotchman, of the name of Mowat — who 
rode along with us to church, and who had formerly 
been a compositor in the city of Glasgow — was also just 
about to commence squatting on his own hand, along 
with his brother, both of whom had for some time pre- 
vious been in Mr. Aitken's employment. Both brothers 
were most industrious active men ; and their aged 
parents having also come out to the province, they had 
purchased a house for them in Melbourne, and were 
maintaining them there. 

Mr. Malcolm observed that he had had various 
families of Scotch Highlanders and others in his ser- 
vice as shepherds, who had saved the whole of their 
wages, and invested them in cattle and taken farms on 
lease. One of these has a cattle-farm of 800 acres 
rented from him for £60 a-year. Mr. M. added, that 
he had an excellent shepherd — an expiree convict — 
still in his service, to whom he had paid in money 
wages upwards of £400, at the rate of £40 a-year 
sometimes ; but the man has not a sixpence saved, as 
he drinks all he earns as regularly as he receives his 
wages. Mr. Aitken confirmed this statement by ob- 
serving, that the rest of his men had had precisely the 
same opportunities as the Camerons and the two 
Mowats ; but they had regularly spent all they earned 
and were shepherds still. 

The limits of the county of Bourke are not by any 
means co-extensive with those of the District Council 
of the same name ; but as the county embraces the 
principal and the best cultivated portion of that dis- 
trict, I shall subjoin, from the Port Phillip Herald, the 
following statistics of its agricultural produce up to the 
close of the year 1845. They were collected by Mr. 
J ohn Price, a respectable colonist of Phillipsland. The 
population of that county is 6376. 



PHILLIPSLANDe 



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SOO^OJ 



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IQ H N 00 «q O 
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C CO ^ 

03 



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00 CO E> 
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w CO Q t?q X H 
r-. <M 03 



00 

oo 



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CHAPTER IV. 



GEELOXG- AXD ITS YICIXITY. 

There is a steamboat daily from Melbourne to G-ee- 
long, a rising town at the head of the western arm of 
the great inlet or harbour of Port Phillip, and decidedly 
the second place in importance in the province. The 
distance is about fifty miles, and the two vessels on the 
course ply to and fro on alternate days. One of my 
fellow passengers was Alexander Thomson, Esq. of 
Geelong, one of the original members of the Legisla- 
tive Council of Xew South Wales for the district of 
Port Phillip, who had kindly agreed to accompany me 
on horseback for about 120 miles across the country to 
the westward, in the direction of Portland Bay and 
South Australia. 

Below the natural dyke over which the Yarra-Yarra 
falls at Melbourne, alluded to in the extract from Mr. 
Latrobe's communication already referred to, there is a 
natural basin of considerable extent, and sufficient for a 
large coasting commerce ; but as another dyke crosses 
the river under water farther down, while a moveable 
sand bank obstructs its mouth, vessels of more than 
200 tons cannot get up to the town. The inconvenience 
however, of having the shipping at so great a distance 
as Hobson's Bay will doubtless lead, at no distant pe- 
riod, to the removal of both of these obstructions, which 
money and engineering can easily effect ; and in that 
case it will probably be deemed expedient and neces- 
sary to excavate a capacious dock, adjoining the pre- 
sent basin, on the left bank of the river, where the soil 
consists merely of successive depositions of mud and 
sand. But the tortuous course of the river, and the 



104 



PHILLIP SLAXD. 



probably great expense which it would cost, first to re- 
move the existing obstructions, and afterwards to keep 
the channel clear, have induced Mr. Lennox, the Su- 
perintendent of Bridges, to suggest that a ship-canal 
should rather be excavated from the head of the bay to 
the basin at Melbourne, or a dock in its vicinity, with 
a sea-lock at the entrance. The distance across is only 
two miles, and the intervening land consists entirely of 
sand and mud, the successive deposits from innumerable 
land-floods. That such a project would be of compa- 
ratively easy accomplishment, there cannot be a doubt ; 
but whether the action of a strong southerly wind upon 
nearly forty miles of shallow sea, within the heads of 
Port Phillip, would not render it impracticable to keep 
the sea-gates constantly open; is a question for engineers 
to answer. At all events, it is sufficiently obvious that 
one of the first public works of importance to be under- 
taken by the Colony of Phillipsland, as soon as that 
province shall have attained a separate political exist- 
ence and a self- determining power, will be a work of 
some kind or other for the improvement of the harbour. 

The phenomenon noticed by Mr. Latrobe, of a great 
change having taken place in the relative levels of land 
and water around the harbour of Port Phillip, is parti- 
cularly observable along certain parts of the western 
arm — the ancient sea-beach being strongly marked, and 
rising far above the present high- water level. There 
is reason, therefore, to believe that a considerable rise 
of the land has taken place at some period or other, 
along this part of the coast. 

Among our fellow passengers, there was one of rather 
a rough exterior, and clothed in the coarse habiliments 
of a Squatter or Bushman, who, I understood, however, 
was one of the most extensive proprietors both of land 
and stock, not only in the Colony of Yan Diemen's 
Land, to w T hich he belonged, but also in Port Phillip. 
Mr. Clarke (for that was the gentleman's name) w<as a 
native of England, and had realized a handsome colo- 
nial fortune in Yan Diemen's Land by rearing sheep of 
the Leicestershire breed — a breed of large carcasses and 



GEELOXG AND ITS VICINITY. 



of a heavy but coarse fleece — which he had subsequently 
introduced into Port Phillip. Mr. Clarke was, natu- 
rally enough, enthusiastic in the praise of that breed, 
which he preferred from the size of the carcass, as com- 
pared with that of the Saxon sheep, the weight of the 
fleece and the hardier constitution of the animal, in not 
being subject either to catarrh or to foot-rot — two dis- 
eases that often prove fatal to fine-woolled sheep ; and 
he was unreasonable enough not to be convinced by the 
demonstrations of certain other flock-masters on board, 
(who, however, had as yet made no such fortunes to give 
weight to their reasonings.) of the superior eligibility of 
the Saxon breed — a breed of smaller carcass and a 
lighter fleece, but of much finer wool. He had em- 
barked very shortly before at Melbourne for Hobart 
Town, Van Diemen's Land, with a flock of 200 of his 
fat Leicestershire wethers, which, he stated, had each 
averaged 7 lbs. of wool, and were each 140 lbs. weight. 
He had been offered £1 a-head for them in Melbourne 
before he sailed, but expecting to get £2 at Hobart Town, 
he had refused it. A tremendous storm, however, having 
overtaken the vessel in the Straits, he was glad to pat 
back with them to Melbourne, where he eventually 
sold them to a butcher at 1 7s. a-head. Mr. Clarke ap- 
peared to me to be one of those long-headed men w^ho 
occasionally succeed in making a fortune by dealing in 
an inferior article which other people undervalue ; for, 
although I did not pretend to offer any opinion on the 
subject, there did appear to me to be some reason in 
the observation of a respectable colonist, who had taken 
no part in the controversy, but w r ho, I understood, had 
succeeded rery well with Saxon sheep, that if every 
person were following Mr. Clarke's example, the co- 
lony would lose its character for raising fine wool, 
wdiile its produce of that description would be unsale- 
able in England, except at the lowest price, and the 
fat sheep would find no market in the colony. 

I was amazed at the produce of Mr. Clarke's sheep — 
it seemed so greatly to exceed anything I had ever 
heard of in New South Wales ; but Dr. Thomson after- 



106 



PHILLIP SL AND . 



wards showed me a pet wether of his which, he told 
me, had once yielded 10^ lbs. of wool. It was then 
aged nine years, and the quantity of wool it yielded had 
decreased from that maximum one pound every year. 
In the season of 1845 and 1846, its fleece weighed 6 lbs. 
Sheep in England average four pounds of wool each, 
and do not come to maturity till they are five years of 
age, but in Phillipsland they reach their maturity at 
three. The age to which they attain afterwards depends 
principally on the nature of the pasture. If the latter 
is either too rich or too sandy, the animal's teeth wear 
away sooner, and it would consequently die at last of 
starvation, if from no other cause. Dr. Thomson's pet 
wether was of the Saxon breed, and weighed from 150 
to 160 lbs. 

Mr. Clarke's estimate of the cost of production of 
every pound of wool was — in Van Diemen's Land fif- 
teenpence, and in Phillipsland sixpence. This won- 
derful difference arises from various causes — from the 
comparatively small extent and inferior character of 
the natural pasture in Van Diemen's Land as compared 
with Port Phillip, from the greater severity of the win- 
ter in the former colony, and from the more open cha- 
racter of the country in the latter. At all events, it 
sufficiently accounts for the early and extensive emi- 
gration from Van Diemen's Land to Port Phillip. 

The Western Arm is navigable for large vessels as 
far up as Point Henry on the southern shore, about 
seven miles from the harbour of Geelong. From that 
point, however, a shoal stretches across to the opposite 
shore ; but as that shoal has been ascertained to con- 
sist exclusively of an ancient deposit of shells and other 
matter of inferior tenacity, it has been estimated by 
practical men that the channel could be opened, by 
means of a dredging-machine, so as to be rendered 
practicable for large vessels up to Geelong, at an ex- 
pense of not more than £2500. At present such ves- 
sels must lie to the eastward of Point Henry, which 
occasions considerable inconvenience to the exporters 
of wool. 



GEELONG AND ITS VICINITY. 



107 



The bay of Geelong is remarkably picturesque, and 
the situation of the town — which many intelligent per- 
sons are of opinion ought to have been the capital of 
the province — is decidedly one of the best for a great 
commercial city in Australia. The progress of the 
settlement hitherto affords an instructive illustration of 
the peculiar tendencies and results of the Gippsian 
policy in the disposal of Crown Land and Town Allot- 
ments. In his despatch to Sir George Gipps, of the 
31st May 1840, Lord John Russell, who was then 
Secretary of State for the Colonies, most judiciously 
observes as follows : — 

" Desiring, then, that no town-sites shall be reserved 
inland, and that even on the coast only the probable 
situations of considerable seaports should be reserved, 
I propose to advance a step farther, and to direct that, 
when such towns are properly laid out and offered for 
sale, the lots may consist of acres, or of equal parts of 
acres, as the circumstances of the case may require, 
but that the price shall be fixed at the uniform rate of 
£100 an acre." 

Now, if this judicious policy had been pursued at 
Geelong, or even if the uniform price of £100 an acre, 
proposed by Lord John Russell, had been changed into 
a minimum price of that amount, so as to admit of 
competition for particular sites, a large number of 
town allotments would have been purchased in that 
locality, and a flourishing town, with a concentrated 
population, would have been formed. But Sir George 
Gipps, thinking this was much too good an opportunity 
for raising a large revenue from the sale of town allot- 
ments, fixed the minimum price of such allotments in 
Geelong at £300 an acre, and those who purchased at 
that rate were obliged either to cut up their allotments 
into the minutest fragments, or to expend the capital, 
which might otherwise have been employed in rearing 
for themselves respectable and comfortable houses, in 
the mere purchase of sites. But as this profound 
scheme for screwing out the last shilling from an enter- 
prising and industrious people did not answer, and the 



108 PHILLIP SLAXD . 

Geelong town allotments hung upon the Government 
auctioneer's hands, His Excellency hit upon another 
notable scheme for raising the wind, namely, by 
drawing an imaginary line from east to west through 
what should have constituted the township, and calling 
the portion next the harbour North Geelong and the 
other portion South Geelong, the minimum price in 
the latter being lowered to .£150 an acre. Of course, 
those who could not afford to purchase allotments in 
North Geelong, where alone the town should have been 
in the first instance, were induced to take this Govern- 
ment bait, and to form an insignificant village at about 
a mile distant from the proper town. But there were 
other people as long-headed in the matter as this 
hawker-and-pedlar Governor, who, having purchased 
suburban allotments, as they are called, beyond the 
imaginary lines that form the boundaries of both towns, 
at the rate of Jo an acre in one locality and of £2 an 
acre in another, and knowing that there were many 
industrious people who would gladly purchase a site 
for a cottage of their own in such a vicinity, but who 
could not be expected to do so either at £300 or at £150 
an acre, formed opposition-towns on these allotments, 
in which building allotments were procurable at a 
reasonable price for humble people, and thereby carried 
off both purchasers and population from both of the 
Governor's towns. There is thus the rival town of 
Ashby, a mile from North Geelong ; and Irishtown, the 
rival of South Geelong, from which it is also a mile 
distant ; and Newtown, a third opposition-town between 
the other two. The population of the Government 
towns of North and South Geelong in 1846 was 1370, 
while that of the three opposition towns was 695. 

The irrational and absurd character of this policy, 
especially in a new country, may not be obvious at 
first to the reader who has never been out of Great 
Britain, where every large city is sure to have numer- 
ous and extensive suburbs attached to it, each of which 
is often large enough to provide itself with those insti- 
tutions which the progress of society and the general 



GEELONG AND ITS VICINITY. 



109 



welfare have rendered necessary in the mother-country. 
But the state of things in the Colonies is very different ; 
and to allow the population of an incipient town in 
such circumstances to be cut up into five minute frag- 
ments argues a want of common sense, as well as of 
everything like a proper feeling for the public welfare, 
utterly inexcusable on the part of a Government. 

In all these five insignificant towns, for example, 
there are probably not more children than might have 
been educated in one large school by one well qualified 
and efficient teacher ; but as they cannot all be assem- 
bled in such a school, the education of youth must 
necessarily be intrusted to inferior hands, while, per- 
haps, half the whole number of the children will go 
altogether uneducated. Again, how can all the mem- 
bers of any one religious denomination in these five 
towns be assembled together for the public worship of 
God on the Christian Sabbath? Most of them will be 
too far off from the place of worship, or the weather 
will either be too hot for them in summer or too wet 
in winter, to attend divine service. If there is to be 
an efficient police in the neighbourhood, there must be 
a watch-house in each town ; whereas a single watch- 
house would have served for all the evil-doers of a con- 
centrated population. And if there is any object of 
common concernment, requiring for its accomplishment 
the united efforts of a considerable population, the 
rival interests of these petty towns, and the indifference 
of the inhabitants of each as to the comfort or conve- 
nience of all the others, will preclude the possibility of 
a combination of efforts for the purpose. 

For example, the town of Geelong requires water to 
be brought into it, and as there is a fall in the Barwon 
river four miles distant, it would have been compara- 
tively easy for a town population, even of 2000 souls, 
to bring an abundant supply of that indispensable 
article into the town for all purposes. But how can 
the inhabitants of the five petty towns into which this 
small population is distributed, be expected to combine 
for any such object, when it would cost twice as much 



110 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



to carry the water to each of these towns as to bring it 
into the centre of the proper town ? 

His Excellency Sir Richard Bourke had a very 
different idea of the duties and responsibilities of 
Governments hrsuch situations, from his income-raisin^ 
successor. Ivnen it was recommended to him to form 
a township at Geelong, he declined doing so, on the 
ground that if the Government laid off a town, and 
sold allotments in it, it would be incumbent upon them 
to bring in a supply of water for the inhabitants. But 
Sir George Gipps lays off a town and sells the allot- 
ments at an exorbitant price, and then leaves the 
inhabitants of the five rival towns, which his own 
cupidity and folly have conjured up into existence, to 
find water for themselves as they may. In short, it is 
lamentable to think how the best interests of the com- 
munity have been compromised and sacrificed for ail 
time coming, by this wrong-headed, obstinate man, at 
every turn For instance, what could have been more 
conducive to the health, as well as to the comfort and 
convenience, of a town population, than the reservation 
of large spaces within the precincts of colonial towns 
for public squares ? But there is nothing of the kind 
in the towns of this man's formation in Australia. It 
would have taken up too much land, which might 
otherwise be sold for town allotments, in so small an 
island as New Holland ! 

Corio, (pronounced Coraio, with the accent on the 
second syllable.) is the native name for the beach at 
Geelong, the latter being the name of the inlet or 
harbour : the residents in the place generally call the 
town of North Geelong Corio. About a mile and a 
quarter from Corio the Barwon river passes Geelong 
in its tortuous course to the ocean ; and as there is a 
natural terrace on each side of the river, parallel to its 
banks — probably the ancient sea-beach when the level 
of the land was considerably lower, and all the low 
ground under water — several suburban allotments have 
been purchased in this vicinity, and delightful villas 
constructed on each side of the river. Mr. Willis, an 



GEELONG AND ITS VICINITY. 



Ill 



extensive stockholder from Van Diemen's Land, has a 
very neat one on the left bank, next Pentapolis, or the 
five towns ; and my friend Dr. Thomson, who was one 
of the earliest arrivals from the same island and the 
first at Geelong, has one on the right. Dr. Thomson's 
place is called Kardinia. or Sunrise, the aboriginal 
name of the locality. 

On the morning after our arrival at Geelong, Dr. 
Thomson accompanied me on a visit to Miss Drysdale, 
an elderly maiden lady from Scotland, whose acquaint- 
ance and friendship I had had the honour of making 
on my first visit to Geelong in the year 1843. when I 
had the pleasure of spending a day or two under her 
hospitable roof. Miss Drysdale is a lady of a highly 
respectable family and of superior intelligence, her 
brother having been the late Sir TTilliani Drysdale. 
Treasurer of the city of Edinburgh. Having a con- 
siderable patrimony of her own. and being of an active 
disposition and fond of rural pursuits, she had rented a 
large farm in Scotland, of which she superintended the 
management in person ; but being a martyr, as she 
told me. to the coughs and colds, and other ills that 
flesh is heir to in our hyperborean Scottish climate, 
she resolved to emigrate to a milder region, where she 
might hope to enjoy better health while she continued 
to indulge in her favourite pursuits, and endeavour 
to exert a salutary influence on some, at least, of her 
fellow-creatures, wherever Divine Providence might fix 
her lot. And, I am happy to add, Miss Drysdale sees 
no reason to regret the step she took, in pursuance of 
this resolution, in emigrating to Phillipsland. She has 
uniformly enjoyed excellent health ; she is in the midst 
of such scenes, and scenery, and occupations, as she 
delighted in at home ; the property she invested in 
stock on her arrival in the colony must have increased 
greatly during the interval that has since elapsed ; and 
she has not only exhibited the goodly and influential 
example of a highly respectable family, living in the 
fear of God and in the zealous observance of all the 
ordinances of religion, in a country in which I am 



112 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



sorry to say such examples are rare, but she has had 
it in her power to render the most valuable services to 
some who really required what she has proved to them 
— a friend indeed. At the period of my first visit to 
G-eelong, Miss D. had two of the younger daughters of 
the late Mr. Batman residing with her, to whom she 
was benevolently discharging the duty of a parent ; and 
her character as a doer of good was generally known 
and gratefully acknowledged in the vicinity. 

It is too generally taken for granted that those only 
should emigrate who have nothing to live on at home — 
the poor, and men of broken fortune of all classes. 
But this is surely taking a very low view of the duty 
of society generally in the matter of emigration, or the 
work of forming States and Empires, churches and com- 
munities, beyond seas ; and if people of a different 
class were more frequently to emigrate with the view 
of doing good in the Colonies, by exerting the influence 
wdiich their wealth or their personal character would 
give them in such situations, for the benefit of society 
at large, the result would be gratifying in the extreme. 
M. de Tocqueville observes, in his work on Democracy 
in America, that there are frequent instances of persons 
of independent fortune in New T England disposing of 
their property and emigrating to the new States and 
Territories in the Far West, for the sole purpose of 
securing to the future inhabitants of these infant com- 
munities the civil and religious institutions of the 
parent State. It must be confessed, we have hitherto 
had very little of this peculiar development of 
patriotism in Great Britain. Nay, so great a rarity 
is it, that even in that profession which peculiarly 
implies entire self-devotion for the welfare of men, 
when a minister of religion of almost any com- 
munion is talked of as having resolved to be- 
take himself to the Colonies, it is tacitly held to be 
tantamount to an acknowledgment that there is either 
something wrong with him, or that he is a " weak 
brother, who has no prospects at home." Your first- 
rate men never think of such a thing as going to the 



GEELONG AXD ITS VICINITY. 



113 



Colonies, and the consequence has been that the great 
bulk of those we have had hitherto might be fairly 
estimated at the humble valuation of " Willie's" wife 
in the Scotch song, of whom the poet declares, 

" I wadna gi'e a button for her." 

On her arrival in the Colony, Miss Drysdale deter- 
mined to "squat," as it is styled in the phraseology of 
the country ; that is, to settle on a tract of unoccupied 
Crown land, of sufficient extent for the pasturage of 
considerable flocks and herds, with their increase for 
several years — a tract, in all likelihood, from twenty- 
five to fifty square miles in extent. For this land the 
occupant pays a yearly license-fee to the Government 
of £10, which ensures to him for the time being the 
full possession of the entire tract ; and it is universally 
understood that while this fee is paid, and no offence 
committed against the laws and customs of squatting, 
the occupant shall not be disturbed unless the land is 
sold in the meantime to a bona fide purchaser, at not 
less than a pound an acre, or required for Government 
purposes — neither of which events is in ordinary cir- 
cumstances at all likely to happen. It has not been 
allowed for a good many years past to give a squatting 
license of this kind to any person within a considerable 
distance of a township or village ; but Miss Drysdale 
was allowed, as a special exception from this general 
rule, to occupy a station within four miles of the town 
of Geelong. On that station she accordingly erected a 
neat thatched cottage, with glazed rustic lattice win- 
dows, which she had carried out with her from home, 
formed a garden, and fenced in a sufficient extent of 
superior land for cultivation. The cottage had been 
greatly improved, both externally and internally, at the 
period of my visit in 1846, and three years had made 
a wonderful change for the better upon the garden, 
which had gravelled walks dividing the different par- 
terres — the only instance of the kind I had seen in the 
country, and strongly reminding me of home. 

The situation of Miss Drysdale's cottage, to which 

H 



114 



PHILLIFSLAXD. 



she has judiciously given the native name of the 
locality, Barrangoop, which signifies a turf, is on a 
gentle grassy slope towards the Barwon river, with 
the garden in front. The cottages of her farm-overseer 
and servants are close at hand, and remind one of a 
respectable farming establishment in the old country. 
On my first visit to Geelong, I found a respectable 
young man, who had been three sessions at the Uni- 
versity of Glasgow, as an intending candidate for the 
Christian ministry, but who had subsequently abandoned 
his studies and gone out as a Bounty emigrant to Port 
Phillip, acting in the humble capacity of tutor to the 
children of Miss D.'s overseer, a respectable Scotch 
farmer with a large family. I was enabled some time 
after to recommend him to a better situation of the 
same kind, and I subsequently invited him to Sydney 
to prosecute his studies for the ministry, which, how- 
ever, he declined. He is now superintending a large 
squatting establishment for the gentleman in whose 
family he had sometime held the office of tutor, and he 
will doubtless eventually become a squatter on his own 
account, and realize a respectable competency as a 
keeper of sheep and cattle. Upon the whole, there 
was something of a domestic character about Miss D.'s 
establishment generally, which is but rarely seen at the 
squatting stations of the interior ; and I could not help 
thinking that the very horses and cattle seemed to con- 
sider themselves more at home than elsewhere. Their 
tameness was anything but " shocking to me." 

After passing Geelong to the left, the Barwon river, 
which in this part of its course is a beautiful stream, 
pursues a south-easterly course, nearly parallel to that 
of the western arm of Port Phillip, to the Great 
Southern Ocean. About nine or ten miles below 
Barrangoop, it spreads out into a series of lakes as pic- 
turesque as any sheets of water of that kind I have 
ever beheld. On my first visit to this part of the coun- 
try in 1843, I rode down to these lakes along with Miss 
Newcome, another maiden lady, whom Miss Drysdale 
had some time before taken into partnership with her- 



IxLELOXG AND ITS VICINITY. 



115 



self — partly, I presume, that she might have some 
kindred spirit, which I am happy to say Miss N. un- 
questionably is, to whom she might be able to whisper 
that " solitude was sweet." Miss X. was quite at 
home on her high-spirited steed, and we galloped 
along through scenery of the richest description, beau- 
tiful grassy plats alternating with clumps of trees of 
the most graceful and ornamental foliage, till we 
reached the lakes. These extensive sheets of glassy 
water, variegated with headlands and islands, were ab- 
solutely alive with black swans, and other water fowl, 
sailing quietly along on their silent surface. There 
must have been at least five hundred swans in view at 
one time, on one of the lakes. They were no "rara 
avis" there. Their deep solitudes, however, are effec- 
tually invaded now, for the white man will soon thin 
their ranks in all probability, and force them to retreat 
before the progress of civilization. 

Miss Drysdale is a member of the Presbyterian 
Church, and Miss Newcome of the Wesleyan commu- 
nion ; and at the period of my first visit the Rev. Mr. 
Dredge, the Wesleyan Minister of Geelong, was in the 
habit of performing divine service at Barrangoop every 
Wednesday or Thursday evening. I happened to be 
there on his arrival, and was requested to take his 
place for that week, which I willingly did. Mr. Dredge 
is a most respectable man, and deserves the highest 
credit for the good he was universally admitted to have 
done at Geelong. He had gone out to the Colony a 
few years before, as a Government officer with a re- 
spectable salary, as one of the corps of Assistant Pro- 
tectors of the Aborigines, an office created, perhaps 
with greater benevolence than judgment, by Lord 
Glenelg; but finding that, in the peculiar circumstances 
of the Colony, he could do no good in that capacity, he 
had renounced his salary and appointment, and be- 
taken himself to the discharge of more congenial duties 
as a minister of religion. Perhaps the circumstance 
of his having refused to eat the Queen's bread, when 
he found he could not do so conscientiously any longer, 



116 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



was a source of attraction in my own case on the part 
of Mr. Dredge ; for I had done so also myself about a 
year before, and had afterwards been made to suffer 
for it on the part of certain people like Willie's wife. 
But there is no place in which the sentiment of the 
ancient moralist, " Ipse aspectus boni viri deleetat,"* 
is felt more strongly than in those in which the selfish 
"principle is so much more strongly developed than 
elsewhere, and in which such a sight, especially in cer- 
tain classes of society, is proportionally rare — I mean 
the Colonies. 

The peninsula included between the Barwon River 
and the western arm of Port Phillip, which is probably 
twenty-five miles in length, from Indented Head to 
Geelong, contains about 160,000 acres, of which the 
greater part consists of land of the first quality, 
whether for pasture or for cultivation. It seems to be 
a continuation of the same tract of level country that 
stretches along for upwards of two hundred miles to the 
westward from Geelong, between the coast range, or 
Marrack hills, and the ranges of the interior. 

When talking of Pentapolis, or the five towns, I had 
almost forgotten to mention that Geelong has a respect- 
able Journal of its own — The Geelong Advertiser, or 
Squatter s Advocate, published twice a-week. It has 
also places of worship, of respectable appearance, for 
the Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Wesleyan and Romish 
communions ; and the Geelong Races, with the Squat- 
ters' Cup, for horses of whatever pedigree, character, or pre- 
vious occupation — like the Squatters themselves — attest 
that it is in no respect behind any other place of equal 
importance, in this universal accompaniment of Aus- 
tralian civilization. 

Immediately to the westward of Geelong, there is 
much fine land and beautifully picturesque scenery in 
w T hat are called by their aboriginal name, the Barrabool 
hills, consisting apparently of decomposed trap rock, 
and presenting the most fertile soil to their very sum- 



* 'The very sight of a good man is delightful. 



GEELONG AND ITS VICINITY. 



117 



mits. I had spent a day in traversing these hills on 
horseback with my friend Dr. Thomson in 1843, in the 
course of which we enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. 
Fisher, a respectable thoroughbred Scotch farmer, one 
of the earliest arrivals in the district, from Van Die- 
man's Land, who has purchased a considerable tract of 
land in this locality, and built his house on the face of 
one of the hills, the situation of which affords him one 
of the finest prospects imaginable. The garden exhi- 
bited the most luxuriant growth of all descriptions of 
European roots, fruits and vegetables, and every de- 
scription of European grain appeared to succeed ad- 
mirably. The land is naturally so lightly timbered 
that the plough can be thrust into the rich chocolate 
coloured soil in every direction, without any previous 
preparation in the felling of trees. Indeed it would 
almost be an act of Gothic barbarism, to cut down the 
remaining trees in such situations, even in the midst of 
cultivated fields, were it not for the shelter they afford 
to the parrots and cockatoos that destroy the grain. 

In returning homeward from Mr. Fisher's, we made 
a considerable detour among the Barrabool hills to visit 
the station, that had then been but recently occupied, 
of three families of Vignerons from the Canton of 
Neufchatel in Switzerland. They had been brought 
out to the Colony a few years before in the capacity of 
hired servants, but, disliking the situation in which they 
found themselves, they had, with the consent of their 
employer, taken a lease of a piece of land, and gone 
upon their own hands. They were Protestants and 
Presbyterians ; and the men, of whom we saw two, were 
tall, stout, active, intelligent, and evidently most indus- 
trious persons. One of them had been some time in 
Italy, but he spoke in rapturous terms of the soil and 
climate of Phillipsland, in comparison with those of any 
country he had ever seen; and he gave us to understand 
that if numbers of his countrymen had only such a coun- 
try to work upon, they would speedily transform their 
locations into a terrestrial paradise, and themselves into 
wealthy men. They were forming an extensive vine- 



us 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



yard at the time, as also a plantation of the Palnia 
Christi, or Castor Oil tree, with the intention of sending 
home the berries or raw produce of the latter, to be 
pressed into oil in Europe. I had fully intended to 
visit their station again., before leaving Geelong, on my 
return to the district in 1846 ; for the vineyard, I was 
told, was then in full bearing, and an object of great 
interest and attraction to all intelligent persons in the 
neighbourhood : but as I had lost part of a day, froni 
something having gone wrong with the machinery of 
the steamboat on the passage from Melbourne, and as 
we had still a journey of 37 miles before us for that day, 
after our return from our morning visit to the ladies of 
Barrangoop. in order to reach the point where I was 
to come up with the Melbourne Mali to Portland, on 
the evening of the fourth day's ride from Geelong, I 
was obliged to forego that pleasure. I regretted this 
the more from the probability of my visiting Switzer- 
land, during my stay in Europe on my present voyage, 
and perhaps having it in my power to u airt" some 
more of the valuable emigrants from that country to 
Phillipsland — a land in which I am quite sure they 
would succeed incomparably better than in the United 
States, and the climate of which is beyond all compari- 
son superior to that of any part of America. The 
vineyard of the Swiss vignerom at Geelong, produces 
already at the rate of 1000 gallons of wine per acre. 

There was comparatively little cultivation among the 
Barabool hills at the period of my first visit in 1S-43 ; 
and the scene in every direction from the summits of 
the hills we ascended was exceedingly beautiful — an 
undulating country, thinly wooded and richly covered 
with grass. But to me, at least, it was not interesting, 
simply because it was uninhabited. People may talk 
of natural scenery as they please, but it is man and his 
works that give an interest and a charm to the face of 
nature every where. God made the earth to be in- 
habited ; and wherever it is not inhabited, it is a mere 
blank to man. There are now, however, a number of 
smiling larms in this part of the country, and land 



GEELONG AND ITS VICINITY. 



119 



which was purchased a few years ago, during the pre- 
valence of high prices and general delusion, at from £2 
to <£4 an acre, perhaps ruining the purchaser for his 
folly, and exchanging owners at a great loss, is now 
leased to industrious small farmers at a yearly rental 
of ten shillings an acre. 

On crossing the river, on my return from Barran- 
goop, at a natural ford where an embankment has been 
constructed for the double purpose of forming a road 
across the river and of preventing the fresh water above 
from being influenced by the tide water below, I ob- 
served that the whole of the rocks of which the embank- 
ment was constructed consisted of vesicular trap, or 
cellular lava. This, indeed, is the general character of 
the rocks in the Port Phillip District : with us, in the 
Sydney or -Middle District, it is the rare exception ; the 
staple commodity in the article of rocks in that part of 
the territory being sandstone. " Man !" exclaimed a 
Scotch stone-mason from Dundee, on getting within 
the Heads of Port Jackson and seeing nothing around 
him but immense sandstone cliffs, " it's a gran' kintra 
for stane 1" 



CHAPTEE V. 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES, 

Kardixia, Dr. Thomson's residence, is situated on 
the summit of the natural terrace to which I have 
already alluded, on the right bank of the Barwon, the 
garden occupying the steep declivity in front. It was 
one of the earliest habitations of civilized man in this 
part of the country, and as it was necessarily erected on 
Government land, on which, of course, it was not ex- 
pedient to go to much expense, to tempt the cupidity 
of some rival competitor at the next Crown land sale, 
it was constructed of slight materials, and was not 
intended to have the character of permanence. But 
the hand of woman can give even "a bush house" an air 
of domesticity and neatness that imparts a charm to the 
wilderness and makes the solitary place rejoice. The 
shrubbery and the white-washed walls without, and 
the recently fresh-papered partitions within, with the 
other unequivocal traces of delicate female hands, did 
not require the adventitious aid either of books or of a 
pianoforte (although these were both in view) to pro- 
claim that people of cultivated minds and refined taste 
were lodged within the bush cottage of Kardinia — a 
cottage which the reader must recollect was quite re- 
markable in the district in being able to boast a vener- 
able antiquity of nearly ten years. 

Although it was still early in the day when we 
returned from our morning visit to the ladies at Bar- 
rangoop, Mrs. Thomson was not likely to allow her 
husband and his friend to undertake a long journey on 
horseback on what the Scotch elder most appropriately 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 121 

called "a cold collection."* After partaking, there- 
fore, of an early dinner, we mounted fresh horses and 
" took to the bush,'* the day of our departure being the 
28th of January 1846. 

The usual route from Geelong to Lake Colac is 
several miles to the northward of the course we pur- 
sued, and the land along that route for the first few 
miles, being the valley of the Barwon river, is con- 
siderably better ; but as I had long been desirous of 
visiting the station of the Wesley an Mission to the 
Aborigines, near the sources of the river, which was 
very little out of our way, we took the most direct 
course to that station, and consequently stood some- 
what more to the southward. For a few miles the 
land we passed over, consisting of hill and dale, and 
forming a grazing station of Dr. Thomson's, was per- 
haps rather light for cultivation, but afforded very fair 
pasture. We then entered a beautiful pastoral country, 
nearly level though gently undulating, with only a few 
trees here and there, as far as the eye could reach. 
At the distance of fourteen miles from Geelong, we 
passed the dry basin of the Lake Murdiwarry, or Mode- 
warre. Dr. Thomson had never seen it dry before, 
although he had been ten years in the country ; but 
the summer of 1845 and 1846 was an unusually hot 
and dry season in all parts of Eastern Australia, and 
the month of January, corresponding to July in 
Europe, is generally the hottest month in the Austra- 
lian year. Lake Murdiwarry is of a circular form, 
very shallow, and about six miles in circumference. 
The banks are formed into regular terraces ail round, 
as if the water had once stood at a much higher level 
than it usually does now. It was the first lake of the 
kind I had ever seen, and I could form no satisfactory 
conjecture at the time as to its probable origin. It 
was evidently, however, of the same character and 
origin as the numerous circular lakes, all of much 



* Collation. 



122 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



smaller dimensions, which Sir Thomas Mitchell had dis- 
covered, in the year 1836, about a hundred and fifty 
miles to the westward, and I had no doubt that our 
further progress in that direction would throw some 
light upon the subject. 

For the next fifteen or twenty miles our route lay 
across a succession of rich verdant plains, with here 
and there a slight undulation on their surface. Almost 
the only wood seen on these plains is what is called 
lightwood, or blackwood, by the Van Dieman's Land 
colonists. It resembles the apple-tree in size, and the 
orange, or rather the bay-tree in the character of its 
vegetation. I have never seen it in New South Wales, 
but it grows in Van Dieman's Land, and it is always 
the certain indication of land of the first quality for 
cultivation. A few ornamental trees of this kind, 
scattered irregularly over the surface of these beautiful 
plains, greatly enhance their beauty ; while Mount 
Gellibrand, a volcanic mountain rising to the height of 
560 feet above their general level, is seen to a great 
distance in all directions, and tends greatly to animate 
the scene. Mount Gellibrand was about ten miles to 
the northward of our route, and there was also another 
volcanic mountain — Mount Hesse — visible in the same 
direction, at a distance of about fifteen miles. 

A few miles from the Mission Station, as we ap- 
proached the sources of the Barwon, the country 
assumed a more variegated appearance, rising into 
beautiful sheep downs richly covered with grass, with 
here and there clumps of trees of graceful form and 
umbrageous foliage. I was beginning, however, to 
get very tired w T hen we reached Buntingdale, the Mis- 
sion Station, thirty-seven miles from Geelong, after a 
ride, without halting, of six hours and a half. People 
at home would think it rather unfair to task a horse at 
this rate ; but the colonial horse accommodates himself 
remarkably well to the wants of his rider in 66 a land 
not inhabited ;" for the only indication of civilization 
that we had seen the whole way, from the immediate 
neighbourhood of Geelong, was a post and rail fence 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 



123 



which some person, who had purchased a tract of 
valuable land in that locality, was erecting at the place 
where we turned off to the Mission Station. Every- 
where else, and in every direction, the country was 
perfectly clear of every obstruction, and the horseman 
could gallop fearlessly along wherever he pleased — no 
turnpike gates in the way, no four-rail fences, no hedges 
or ditches, no indications of the presence of roan in any 
direction, except, perhaps, where a flock of fine-woolled 
sheep were cropping the rich herbage under the charge 
of a solitary shepherd and his dogs, or a herd of sleek 
cattle browzing in the distance. 

Buntingdale, the station of the Wesleyan Mission to 
the Aborigines, is finely situated on a rising ground on 
the right bank of the Bar won river, where that river, 
at the period of our visit, was only an inconsiderable 
stream, presenting, however, a series of deep pools 
with a fringe of lofty trees on either side. There is 
no want of wood in this neighbourhood, of which the 
plants we had been traversing were occasionally rather 
bare. This mission was established in the year 1836, 
on the principle, which was then generally acted on by 
the Colonial Government, that a sum, equal to the 
entire amouut of the voluntary contributions of the 
public, should be contributed for its support from the 
land fund of the Colony. On this principle the follow- 
ing amounts were contributed by the Colonial Govern- 
ment for the TTesleyan Mission at Buntingdale, and I 
must acknowledge that the sum total appears to me 
very large, especially when compared with the amount 
contributed from the Colonial Treasury for the German 
Mission at Moreton Bay, of which the establishment 
was considerably more extensive, but of which the 
results are unfortunately pretty much the same with 
those of the AVesleyan Mission at Buntingdale. 

'•Extract of Return of the Expenditure of the various 
Missions to the Aborigines, borne by the Public Trea- 
sury, up to the close of the year 1842. moved for by 
Alexander Thomson, Esq.. one of the Representatives 
of Port Phillip :— 



124 



PHILLIPSLAND. 




1838... ,£310 19 2 

1839... 159 7 6 

1840... 321 5 10 

1841... 494 1 4 

1842... 231 0 4 



Wesieyan Mission to the 
Aborigines at Bunting- 
dale, Port Phillip. 

£ 221 11 6 



664 11 9J 
1460 11 7f 
631 18 6 
795 0 5 
449 14 10 
315 0 1 



£1516 14 2 



£4538 8 9 



In the first instance, the AYesleyan Missionaries, of 
whom there were two, with their wives, endeavoured 
by every means in their power to bring as many as 
possible of the Aborigines in the district under the in- 
fluence of Christianity ; but the frequent feuds and 
hostilities of the native tribes with each other rendered 
every effort to combine them in considerable numbers 
under one general system either of discipline or of in^ 
struction utterly abortive, and one of the missionaries 
at length abandoned the undertaking as absolutely hope- 
less. The other missionary, however — the Eev. Mr. 
Tuckfield— conceived that if he could attach himself 
to a single tribe, and isolate that tribe as much as pos- 
sible from every other, there would, humanly speaking, 
be a much greater probability of winning them over to 
Christianity and civilization. TTith this view, he at- 
tached himself to the tribe inhabiting the neighbour- 
hood of Lake Colac, and, the Local Government coin- 
ciding in his views, the tract of country which now 
forms the Mission Station, and which, it was conceived, 
was sufficiently isolated for the purpose, was tabooed, or 
set apart by the Government for the interesting experi- 
ment. In the meantime, however, the land fund 
having unexpectedly experienced a prodigious falling 
off, and general disappointment having attended the 
efforts of Missions to the Aborigines in all quarters 
and under all communions, the Local Government, 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 



125 



with the sanction of Lord Stanley, determined to 
" stop the supplies/' and to leave these undertakings 
to their fate. As a large expenditure, however, had 
been incurred in the erection of the requisite buildings 
at the Mission Station of Buntingdale, and in the 
fencing-in and preparation of a sufficient extent of land 
for cultivation, while the Station itself afforded to a 
considerable extent the means of self-support, Mr. 
Tuckfield resolved to continue at his post, to conduct 
the experiment he had suggested.* 

For a time, indeed, that experiment appears, at least 
from common report, to have been attended with great 
success ; and in a pamphlet on the character and con- 
dition of the Aborigines, published some time before 
he left the Colony by the Rev. Air. Dredge, the prin- 
ciple of isolation adopted by Mr. Tuckfield was repre- 
sented as a most important discovery on the one hand, 
and the success that had attended it as a signal instance 
of the recent triumphs of Christianity on the other. I 
was led, however, I confess, most unwillingly, from 
what I saw and heard on the spot, to question both the 
value of the principle and the fact of its success. 

If the entire isolation of a tribe of aborigines, left 
in the enjoyment of their natural liberty, were at all 
practicable, I would have much more confidence in Mr. 
Tuckfield's principle than I have at present ; but the 
principal difficulty Mr. T. has had to contend with 
hitherto consists in its utter impracticability. Xatives, 
of other tribes adjoining, are naturally jealous of the 
exclusive attention paid to the favoured tribe, and the 
exclusive advantages, in the shape of physical comforts, 
they enjoy ; and there is a strong esprit de corps on the 
part of the aborigines which takes offence at the very 
idea of any of their nation being identified with the 
whites. They are constantly, therefore, endeavouring 



* It appears that £100 a-year has agaiu been granted for this 
Mission from the commencement of the year 1845. probably on 
the recommendation of the Superintendent. 



126 



PHILLTPSLAXD. 



to entice away their fellow-countrymen of the Mission 
tribe, and they are not unfrequently successful. Be- 
sides, the Mission tribe themselves, having been accus- 
tomed to a roaming life, have no idea of abandon- 
ing the habits and customs of their forefathers, or of 
being bound down to a fixed habitation : and this con- 
stitutes the peculiar difficulty of the case : for if the 
natives cannot be fixed to a particular spot, how can 
they be isolated ? 

The Mission tribe, called also the Coladjin tribe, or the 
tribe inhabiting the country around Lake Colac. con- 
sists altogether of only forty-five individuals, of whom 
about one half are adults. Mr. Tuckfield had taught 
the boys and girls to read, and I heard three of them 
read a portion of the New Testament in English, which 
they did with fluency and propriety. Along with 
these the other youth of the tribe that were present on 
the Mission premises attended divine service with Mr. 
Tuckfield's family both morning and evening. Mr. 
T. had also translated the catechisms in use among the 
TTesleyan Methodists into the native dialect. The 
older natives were encamped, at the period of our visit, 
on the bank of the river, about half a mile from the 
Mission premises. They had been employed for a few 
days previous at the wheat harvest, and had reaped in 
all fifteen acres, the extent of land under cultivation at 
the Mission. This, however, was evidently an extra- 
ordinary effort ; for two European hired labourers 
were threshing wheat for the establishment at the time 
in a paddock adjoining the mission-house, which would 
scarcely have been the case if the natives themselves 
could have been relied on for the very moderate amount 
of manual labour required for the Station. In attend- 
ing stock, running or riding after cattle, the young 
native lads I happened to see at the Mission Station 
appeared as able and active as the aborigines are usually 
found to be elsewhere at an occupation so congenial to 
their own habits and dispositions. 

Such, then, was the amount of the civilization in- 
duced among the aborigines at the TTesleyan Mission 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND TOE LAKES. 



127 



Station at Buntingdale, on the isolation principle; 
which, as we were given to understand for a time, was 
to work so mighty a change on the whole character and 
habits of that singular race. In so far as I could judge 
from anything I could either see or hear, that amount 
of civilization was in no respect superior to what had 
often been realized in other parts of the Colony without 
any attempt at isolation.* And in regard to religious 
influence and impressions, conversion to Christianity 
and a change of heart and life, such as is equally neces- 
sary with civilized and savage to constitute a really 
christian man, Mr. Tuckfield frankly acknowledged, 
with an expression of seeming hopelessness in which I 
could not but deeply sympathize, that although " he 
had had some hopes in regard to some of his proteges 
about a year before, he had none whatever at the period 
of our visit." 

The Mission premises consist of a weather-boarded 
cottage for the missionary and his family, a small school 
or chapel, and out-buildings for the aborigines. The 
Reserve, or tract of land set apart by the Government 



* The following is an extract of a letter from John Lambie, 
Esq., J. P., Commissioner of Crown Lands for the District of 
Maneroo, to the eastward of the Snowy Mountains in New South 
Wales, of date Maneroo, 14th January 1842 :— 

" The aborigines of this District, with the exception of the 
coast tribes, may be said to be almost in their primitive state. 
At the stations bordering on the coast, a good many, however, 
of the natives are employed in sheep washing, hoeing maize, and 
reaping ; and last year three boats' crews, in number eighteen, 
were employed by the Messrs. Imlay, in the whale fishery at 
Twofold Bay, on the same lay or terms as the whites. The 
blacks were stationed on the opposite side of the Bay to. the 
other fishermen, and they adopted the same habits as the whites ; 
they lived in huts, slept in beds, used utensils in cooking, and 
made the flour into bread ; but as soon as the fishing season was 
over, they all returned to their tribes in the bush. The natives 
belonging to the tribes to the westward of the coast-range are 
very little employed by the stock owners, except a few, occa- 
sionally, in washing sheep ; they preserve their original habits 
of hunting, and are constantly moving from place to place." — 
Legislative Council Papers for 1843. 



128 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



for the purposes of the mission, consists of five miles in 
every direction around the mission premises, which, in 
the liberal manner of reckoning distances in the colony, 
will comprise at least a hundred square miles, or 64,000 
acres. And as this land is all grazing land of the first 
quality, whether for sheep or cattle, it has been found 
practicable, since the Government discontinued their 
pecuniary allowances for aboriginal missions generally, 
to raise a considerable revenue from it by taking in 
stock to graze. Dr. Thomson has latterly had the 
management of this secular concern for the mission, 
which was rather unproductive before, and under his 
experienced agency it is now realizing from £300 to 
£400 a-year, with the prospect of a considerable in- 
crease ; insomuch that Dr. T. expected they would be 
able to undertake a similar mission, to be supported 
from the revenue of the Reserve, to some other tribe. 1 
Of Mr. Tuckfield personally, I desire to speak in 
terms of sincere regard, as an able, zealous, and inde- 
fatigable missionary. If the isolation scheme should 
not succeed in his hand, as I fear greatly it will not, it 
will not be from any fault on his part. In fact, from 
the rapidity with which the aborigines have already 
been disappearing from the face of the earth within 
the limits of Phillipsland, there is reason to apprehend 
that the last of the black natives will be swept away 
from that part of the territory, before Mr. Tuckfield's 
experiment can be said to have had a fair trial. The 
estimated number of black natives in the western dis- 
trict, from Geelong to the boundary of South Australia, 
when the settlement was first formed, was 2000 ; but 
there is now scarcely a thousand altogether in that 
district. In the year 1837, Dr. Thomson counted 230 
natives in the Barrabool tribe ; but in January 1846, 
that tribe did not amount to 70 altogether. The Co- 
ladjin tribe, which was also a numerous tribe at the 
former of these periods, numbers only forty-five indi- 
viduals now.* That tribe, being supposed to have been 



* A third tribe, called the Tarngort tribe, has suffered more 
severely still, and is now nearly annihilated. 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 129 

the murderers of two gentlemen from Tan Dieman's 
Land, Messrs. Gellibrand and Hesse, who went astray 
in the bush in the infancy of the settlement and were 
never afterwards either seen or heard of, were attacked 
by a party of whites, who are said to have shot a great 
number of them, in revenge for the supposed murder. 
The Colajins, being thus greatly weakened and un- 
able to defend themselves, as they had been accus- 
tomed to do before, from hostile aggression on the part 
of their own fellow-countrymen, were set upon by 
other native tribes who had wrongs of their own, 
whether real or imaginary, to revenge, and ancient 
grudges to gratify. In this way they were reduced to 
a mere skeleton of the former tribe; and it is with this 
miserable remnant, consisting of a few broken and dis- 
pirited men and women and a few orphan children, that 
Mr. Tuckfield is now trying his experiment, in which, 
whatever may be one's impressions on the subject, it 
is impossible not to wish him complete success. And 
while millions of acres of the rich pastures of Phillips- 
land are let for the merest trifle to a host of squatters, 
who can have no object but their own personal aggran- 
dizement, it would surely be equally unfair and unwise 
for the Local Government to resume the Eeserve in ques- 
tion, so long as there are any of the poor Colajins to reap 
the benefit of its present appropriation. Before the 
arrival of the white man, whose coming has truly been 
the signal of extermination for the hapless Aborigines, 
that powerful tribe inhabited an extensive tract of 
country having the beautiful Lake Colac as its centre ; 
and of that country each family had not only its own 
portion, but also its own separate and well-defined 
frontage on the lake. But within the short space of 
ten years, this rude framework of society has been 
entirely broken up ; their pleasant land has been 
seized by strangers, and they are now a band of out- 
casts among their fathers' graves ; the warriors of their 
tribe have fallen successively in unequal strife, and the 
goodliest of their youth have pined and died away 
under unknown and horrible diseases, the wretched 

i 



130 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



fruits of their intercourse with Europeans ; and we, 
who are necessarily associated in their minds with all 
these immeasurable wrongs, are astonished, forsooth, 
that the miserable remnant will not receive Christianity 
and civilization at our hands! But the gospel of 
peace can never be successfully preached by those who 
have previously been engaged in practising the gospel 
of spoliation and extermination ; and although the 
missionary himself may have no crimes of this kind to 
answer for, he is naturally included by the Aborigines 
in the same category with those who have. 

The following extracts of a letter from the Chief 
Protector of the Aborigines, G. A. Robinson, Esq., to 
His Honour the Superintendent of Port Phillip, of date 
11th December, 1841, exhibit the condition of the 
Aborigines in this particular, and the process of exter- 
mination which has been in lamentably rapid progress 
in that district. 

The Aboriginal natives of the Portland Bay and Western Port 
Districts are rapidly on the decay; their decrease is attributable 
to several causes, viz., collisions with hostile tribes, collisions 
with white men, infanticide, domestic quarrels, indigenous and 
European diseases, assassination. 

The following are a few of the collisions, from authentic docu- 
ments, brought under the notice of this Department, that have 
happened between settlers and Aborigines, and are respectfully 
submitted for the information of the Government : — 

CASES. 
Charles Wedge and others. 
Five natives killed, and others wounded at the Grampians. 

Aylward, and others. 
"Several natives killed, and others wounded at the Grampians. 
In this case Aylward deposed, * that there must have been a 
great many wounded, and several killed, as he saw blood upon 
the grass, and in the tea- tree two or three dead bodies." 

Messrs. White's collision. — 1st collision. 
William Whyte deposed, 66 that thirty natives were present, 
and they were all killed but two; and one of these, it is reported, 
died an hour after of his wounds." 

Darlot. — One native shot. 
Two natives shot near Portland Bay, by the servants of the 
Messrs. Henty. 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AXD THE LAKES. 



131 



Hutton, and Mounted Police. 
The written Report of this case states, " that the party over- 
took the Aborigines at the junction of the Carnpaspe;" they 
fired, and it is stated, 66 that to the best of the belief of the party, 
five or six were killed. In the opinion of the Sub-Protector, a 
greater number were slain." 

Messrs. Winter and others. 
On this occasion five natives were killed. 
One black shot by Francis. 

MunrOi and Police. 
Two blacks shot, and others wounded. 

The following from Lloyd's deposition: — "we fired on them; 
I have no doubt some were killed; there were between forty and 
fifty natives." 

By persons unknown. 
A native of the Colajin tribe killed by white persons. 

Messrs. Wedge, and others. 
Three natives killed, and others wounded. 
Names of Taylor and Lloyd are mentioned, as having shot a 
black, at Lake Colac. 

WTij/te's 2nd collision, 
Allan's Case. — Two natives shot. 

Taylor was overseer of a sheep station, in the Western Dis- 
trict, and was notorious for killing natives. No legal evidence 
could be obtained against this nefarious individual. The last 
transaction in which he was concerned was of so atrocious a 
nature, that he thought fit to abscond, and he has not been heard 
of since. No legal evidence was attainable in this latter case. 
There is no doubt but the charges preferred were true, for in 
the course of my inquiries on my late expedition, I found a 
tribe, a section of the Jarcoorts, totally extinct, and it was 
affirmed by the natives, that Taylor had destroyed them. The 
tribes are rapidly diminishing. The Colajins, once a numerous 
and powerful people, inhabiting the fertile region of Lake Colac, 
are now reduced, all ases and sexes, under forty, and these are 
still on the decay. The Jarcoorts, inhabiting the country to the 
west of the great Lake Corangamite, once a very numerous and 
powerful people, are now reduced to under sixty. But time 
would fail, and I fear it would be deemed too prolix, were I to 
attempt to particularize, in ever so small a degree, the previous 
state, condition, aud declension of the original inhabitants of so 
extensive a province. 

In a letter from Edward Parker. Esq., Assistant 
Protector of the North-western District, of date, 
u Aboriginal Station, Lar-ne-barraniuL River Loddon, 



132 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



January 5th, 1843, to the Chief Protector, these pain- 
ful recitals are confirmed, as exhibiting the general 
fate of the Aborigines in Phillipsland. 

I have endeavoured to obtain an account of all homicides, 
both by blacks and whites, since the occupation of the District, 
and have the honour to append a Return. This, you will per- 
ceive, exhibits a fearful preponderance against the whites. 

During the past year very few aggressions have taken place on 
the part of the Aborigines, in any part of the District. I again 
have to express my regret that it is not obligatory on the settlers 
to communicate to me any collisions they may have with the 
natives. I have instituted minute inquiries among all the settlers 
in the District, to whom I have had the opportunity of access, 
and they uniformly bear testimony to the general good conduct 
of the natives connected with the station. With the single, but 
painful, exception of the murder of Mr. Allan, no serious outrage, 
so far as I have been able to learn, has been committed by the 
Aborigines in any part of the District during the year. Annexed 
is a return of all cases which have come to my knowledge up to 
the 1st January 1842. No Aboriginal life has been sacrificed 
since that period within the limits of the District. 

Return of the number of Homicides, committed respectively by 
Blacks and Whites, within the limits of the North-western 
District, since its first occupation by Settlers. 

WHITE PEOPLE KILLED BY THE ABORIGINES. 

1838. — May or June A shepherd of W. Bowman's, killed by 

the Taoungurongs near Mount Alexander. 

1839. — May 22d. — A shepherd and hutkeeper of Mr. C. Hut- 
ton's, killed near the Campaspe. 

1840 June. — A shepherd of Messrs. Jennings and Playne, 

(successors to Mr. Hutton) killed near the Campaspe. 

1840. — November 21st. — A hutkeeper of Mr. Wills', killed near 
Mount William. 

1841. — March 1 9th.-— A hutkeeper of Mr, Oliphant's, killed near 
the Pyrenees by the Kalkalgoondeet natives. 

1841. — May. — A shepherd of Mr. Bennet's, killed by the Taoun- 
gurongs on the Campaspe. 

1842. — March 1 Wi.— Mr. A. M. Allan, killed by the Mallgoon- 
deet natives on the Loddon. 

Total number of Homicides by Aborigines — Eight. 

ABORIGINES KILLED BY WHITE PEOPLE. 

]838. — March or April. — Konikoondeet (Jajowrong) and another 
man, name unknown, reported by the Aborigines to have been 
shot by two white men when exploring the country, 

1838 July. — About fourteen men, names unknown, shot by a 

party of men from Bowman's, Ebden's, and Yaldwyn's stations, 
in recovering a flock of Bowman's sheep. 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 



133 



1839. — February Noorowurnin and another Jajowrong, shot 

by Bowerman's assigned servants at the Maiden Hills. 

1839. — June 2'2d Six men, names unknown, shot by the 

Mounted Police on the Campaspe. 

1840. — January. — Wikur, Keramburnin, and another Taoun- 
gurong, shot by Monro and party between the Coliban and 
Mount Alexander. 

1840. — August. — Pandarragoondeet, a Jajowrong native, shot by 
one of Button's assigned servants, who afterwards absconded. 

1840. — September. — Panumarramin, a Grampian native, shot by 
the late J. F. Francis in his sheepfold. 

1840. — December 2\st. — Bonnokgoondeet, Jajowl, Kombonngar- 
ramin, and Pertunarramin, shot by J. F. Francis in the 
Pyrenees. 

1841 February 7 th Gondu-urmin, a Kalkalgoondeet native, 

shot by Button's assigned men near the Loddon. 

1841. — March.- — Mokitte, (Jajowrong) shot near Mount Cole; it 
is said by a [timber] Splitter. 

1841. — May. — Koeny crook, a Taoungurong, shot, it is supposed 
by Beimet's shepherd, who was found murdered. The black 
was found in a tree badly wounded, and died in Melbourne 
Hospital. 

1841. — July Two men reported by the Aborigines to have been 

shot near Hall's, at the foot of the Grampians, by Hall's hut- 
keeper. 

1841 — July or August. — Kowarramin, two other men, and a 

girl, reported by the Aborigines to have been shot by three 

white men near Kirk's, Purrumbeep. 
1841. — August. — Boodbood yarramin, reported by the Aborigines 

to have been shot by Captain Bunbury's storekeeper near 

Mount William. 

Total number of Aboriginal Homicides by Whites — Forty- 
three. 

The Return from which these extracts have been 
made was moved for by my friend Dr. Thomson, when 
a Member of the Legislative Council for Port Phillip, 
in the year 1843. I shall have an opportunity, how- 
ever, of reverting to the subject in the sequel, and of 
exhibiting evidence of a truly gratifying change that 
has since been effected in the condition of the Abori- 
gines in the North-western District, under the able 
and efficient superintendence of Mr. Parker. 

As I have included a few particulars respecting the 
Aborigines of Phillipsland, in an Essay on the origin 
and customs of the Aborigines of New Holland gener- 
ally, contained in another volume at present in the 



134 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



press,* I shall simply refer the reader who may be 
desirous of obtaining information on the subject to that 
volume. Like the Aborigines to the northward, the 
black natives of this part of the Australian land have 
no idea of a God and no object of worship, although 
they have certain superstitious notions as to the exist- 
ence of beings of a superior order to themselves. For 
instance, Murnyan, in Aboriginal Mythology, is the 
name of a superior being of this kind, who formerly in- 
habited a cave to the northward, called Corong-y-yern, 
literally, house of the Moon, but who now lives in that 
luminary. He is doubtless the same personage as our 
own Man in the Moon. 

The general course of the winds in the Southern 
part of the territory, especially towards Bass' Straits, 
is either easterly or westerly, and the clouds are conse- 
quently seen driving either in the one or the other of 
these directions. To account for this phenomenon, an 
old native of the district informed Mr. Tuckfield, that 
all the clouds driving eastward, before the westerly 
winds, rest on the top of a pole on the summit of a 
mountain, at a great distance in that direction, called 
Maranyo, to which they attach themselves in some 
way, till an easterly wind comes and drives them back 
again. 

Marriages, among the Aborigines of this part of the 
country, are generally contracted by the elderly men of 
the tribe, who voluntarily assume the somewhat invi- 
dious office, which Dr. Johnson thought might be 
safely intrusted for our own nation to the Lord Chan- 
cellor of England, of selecting fit and proper persons 
as helpmates for the younger members of their tribe ; 
but marauding excursions are sometimes made into the 
territories of other tribes, as is sometimes the case 
also to the northward, for the purpose of seizing lubras 



* Cooksland ; or the Northern Division of the Colony of 
New South Wales ; its characteristics and capabilities as a highly 
eligible field for colonization. With a Disquisition on the origin, 
manners, and customs of the Aborigines. 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 



135 



or gins — and hence the absurd story, which has gained 
such general credence in Europe, of courtship among 
the Aborigines of New Holland consisting in knocking 
down the object of attachment with a club, and drag- 
ging her off to the bush by the hair. The New-Hol- 
landers merely repeat occasionally, (for it is by no 
means a frequent case among them,) what was done 
by the ancient Romans in the case of the Sabine 
women, and what the Jewish elders recommended the 
bachelors of Benjamin to do at the yearly feast in 
Shiloh. And, as in the case of the Romans, these ag- 
gressions not unfrequently lead to wars. 

The two gentlemen from Yan Dieman's Land, who 
were supposed to have been murdered by the Colajin 
tribe, and whose names have been given to the two 
volcanic mountains in this part of the district, were 
Messrs. Gellibrand and Hesse, both members of the 
honourable profession of the law. At the period of my 
second arrival in Yan Dieman's Land from England, 
in December 1825, Mr. Gellibrand was Attorney-Gen- 
eral of that Colony. I had the pleasure of making his 
acquaintance on that occasion, and of spending a day 
with him at his beautifully picturesque villa, a few miles 
from Hobart Town. He was a man of very superior 
abilities and attainments, and of great enterprise and 
perseverance ; and he had from the first been the soul 
of the Yan Dieman's Land emigration to Port Phillip, 
and had embarked most extensively in the settlement 
of that dependency — having repeatedly visited the 
country at a comparatively early period, and having a 
large quantity of stock depasturing in its ample terri- 
tory, which he had carried over from Yan Dieman's 
Land, before it was taken possession of by the Govern- 
ment of New South Wales. In the year 1837, Mr. 
Gellibrand crossed over to Port Phillip, along with 
his professional friend, Mr. Hesse, and another gentle 
man, who was providentially prevented by some acci 
dent from accompanying him to the bush on their 
landing, to visit their respective stations in the new set- 
tlement. Mr. Gellibrand and Mr. Hesse accordingly 



136 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



proceeded on horseback from Geelong, along with a hired 
shepherd or stockman, to visit a station on the river 
Leigh, to the north westward. Unfortunately, how- 
ever, they lost their way, and after proceeding a con- 
siderable distance in a particular direction, the shepherd 
insisted that they were wrong, and refused to proceed in 
that direction any farther. The shepherd accordingly 
turned back, and found his way to the station ; but 
Mr. Gellibrand, confident that he was right, continued 
to pursue his former course, and he and his unfortunate 
companion never returned. Dr. Thomson, who was 
then in the country, was one of a party who went out 
in search of them. Their track was found and followed 
up towards the sources of the Bar won, in the vicinity 
of the present Mission settlement of Buntingdale ; but 
there all further traces of them were lost. A skeleton, 
or part of a skeleton, has indeed recently been discov- 
ered, by means of the black natives, a long way to the 
westward of that locality^ by Mr. Allan, a respectable 
settler in the district of Port Fairy; and as an old lubra 
or native woman has reported, that it is the skeleton of 
one of 100 white men who were killed by the natives, 
a long time ago, it has generally been supposed to be 
that of Mr. Gellibrand. The rolling of the surf on the 
ocean-beach is distinctly heard at the Mission station, 
over the coast range or Marrack hills in the neighbour- 
hood ; and Dr. Thomson thinks it probable that, hear- 
ing the well-known sound, Mr. Gellibrand and his 
companion would immediately endeavour to make the 
best of their way to the coast. In that event their fate 
would be sealed, as the country in that direction is an 
impracticable jungle, in which even an experienced 
bushman runs the utmost risk of being lost, and out of 
which in such an event escape is almost impossible. 
Dr. Thomson was himself lost in these frightful jungles 
for four days, and got out again, perishing of hunger, 
almost miraculously. I could not help feeling deeply 
affected, as I listened instinctively myself at the Mission 
station to the rolling of the surf on the ocean-beach, 
apparently at no great distance. Assuming the cor- 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 137 

rectness of Dr. Thomson's conjecture, it was doubtless 
in that immediate vicinity, perhaps on the very spot 
where we were then sitting in the comfortable cottage 
of a European family, that that fatal sound was first 
eagerly caught at, by these two unfortunate wanderers 
in the woods and wilds of Australia, as a sound of hope 
and of promise in the moment of despair. For if the 
first glimpse of "the sea" occasioned transports of joy 
among the Ten Thousand Greeks on their famous re- 
treat under Xenophon from the heart of the Persian 
empire, the loud roar of its ocean-waves must at that 
time have been music in the ears of these hapless wan- 
derers. Unhappily, however, it was only the song of 
a siren, alluring them to their fate. 

Mr. Gellibrand's loss was a public calamity to Port 
Phillip ; for although the idea he had taken up that 
private adventurers like himself from a neighbouring 
colony were at liberty to form treaties with the black 
natives of the opposite coast of New Holland, and to 
purchase immense territories from them for the merest 
trifle, as the alleged proprietors of the soil, was equally 
preposterous and intolerable in the present condition of 
the civilized world, he would very soon have been cured 
of this folly like other sensible people, while his talents 
and influence would have been most valuable in giving 
a right direction to public affairs in that important 
settlement, especially at a time when it stood so greatly 
in need of a master-mind like his own, and w-hen there 
was no other person in it of equal standing and abilities 
to take his place. 

The deplorable loss of the emigrant ship Cataraqui^ 
on Kings Island, opposite Cape Otway on the main- 
land at the western entrance of Bass' Straits, has re- 
cently directed public attention in the Colony very 
strongly to this part of the coast, and a Committee of 
the Legislative Council having recommended, during 
the Session of 1 845, that Light-houses should be erected 
on Cape Otway and King's Island, as well as on Kent's 
Groupe and Cape Howe to the eastward, the necessary 
appropriations were accordingly made by the Council 
for the erection of those on Cape Otway and Cape 



138 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



Howe, the other two localities being within the jurisdic- 
tion of the Government of Van Dieman's Land. That 
Government has since agreed to erect a third on Kent's 
Groupe, at the eastern entrance of the Straits, the lan- 
tern and machinery to be provided by the Continental 
Government; the erection of a fourth, on King's Is- 
land, being subject to the decision, as to its necessity — 
on which nautical men are at present somewhat divided 
— of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. 

In reference to the site of the intended Light-house 
on Cape Otway, in the immediate vicinity of the scene 
of the loss of the Cataraqui, the following extract of a 
Letter from His Honour, C. L. Latrobe, Esq., Superin- 
tendent of Port Phillip, to the Colonial Secretary of 
New South Wales, of date, Melbourne, 14th April, 
1846, published in the Appendix to the Votes and Pro- 
ceedings of the Legislative Council of that year, will 
doubtless be interesting to the reader : — 

" In order that no time may be unnecessarily lost in making 
preparations for the erection of a Light-house on Cape Otway, I 
take advantage of the first Mail after my return to town from a 
visit to that part of the Southern Coast, to state to you, for His 
Excellency's satisfaction, that the Cape presents a bold rocky 
promontory of about three miles across, and a general elevation 
of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet, as I should 
consider, above the ocean. 

" The land on the back is, comparativeiy speaking, open, and 
covered with grass and she-oak. Good building stone, lime and 
water, are abundant and accessible. A rise, about a musket-shot 
from the brink of the precipitous face of the southern point of 
the promontory, furnishes, as it appears to me, an admirable site 
for the projected Light-house, as it commands an unimpeded view 
of the whole of the deep bight to the westward, extending between 
Cape Otway and Moonlight Head, and of the entire line of coast 
extending to the north-east towards the Port Phillip Heads. 
The height of the foundation of the building would be about one 
hundred and fifty feet over the sea, so that a column of moderate 
elevation would be all that would be required. And it is princi- 
pally to the end that no time may be lost in preparing the plan, 
&c, for the erection of such a structure, that I hasten to give this 
necessary information. 

" It remains, however, for me to observe, that the coast line 
from the westward, by which I reached the Cape on foot, how- 
ever open as far as Mooonlight Head, is totally impracticable for 
horses or oxen beyond that headland." 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 



139 



In a subsequent communication, of date 9th May 
1846, the Superintendent informs the Colonial Secre- 
tary that he had sent out a party from Lake Colac, to 
penetrate, if possible, to Cape Otway, in a southerly 
direction, and had also engaged a highly competent 
surveyor, Mr. G. D. Smythe, to survey the coast-line 
from the Heads of the Barwon to that Cape. And it 
is gratifying to be able to add, from the latest intelli- 
gence received at Sydney before I left the Colony, that 
the party from Lake Colac, which was under the com- 
mand of a Serjeant of the Native Police, had succeeded 
— only, however, after repeated repulses — in finding the 
main ridge that leads down to the Cape, along which 
the party passed, thereby establishing the practicability 
of maintaining communication by land with the Cape, 
which appears to be inaccessible by sea ; and that Mr. 
Surveyor Smythe has not only effected the main object 
of his expedition in executing a minute survey of the 
coast-line, but discovered on the Cape Otway coast in 
both directions an inexhaustible supply of mineral 
wealth for the Colony. 

The following description of the Cape Otway coun- 
try, which w r ill doubtless be interesting to the reader, 
is extracted from a recent number of that respectable 
and well-conducted journal, the Geelong Advertiser :— 

" The neighbourhood of Cape Otway has hitherto been in a 
great measure a terra incognita ; for although a few individuals 
have penetrated in various directions, yet from the land being 
densely timbered and covered with rank vegetation, and inter- 
sected with ravines and ranges, the ouly descriptions hitherto 
given have been mere enumerations of the difficulties which 
beset the immediate track of the various explorers. The Cape 
itself is the southern extremity of the curved coast-line extending 
from the mouth of the Barwon to the mouth of the Hopkins, 
which are 100 miles apart, or 150 miles following the coast-line. 
The chord of this arc is formed by a series of almost impene- 
trable wooded ranges, enclosing a tract of country containing an 
area of 3000 square miles, or nearly 2,000,000 acres, the whole 
of which is absolutely waste. The whole appears to be a vast 
' jungle,' covered with an almost tropical vegetation, the trees 
attaining dimensions quite unknown in other parts of the colony, 
and the undergrowth of vines and brushwood flourishing with 
an equally extraordinary degree of luxuriance ; the vines espe- 



140 



PHILLIP SLANT) . 



cially forming a trellis-work from tree to tree, which has to be 
cut through with the tomahawk before a passage can be effected. 
Various attempts have been made to form stations within this 
territory, but without success ; for even in the more open parts, 
it is impossible to prevent flocks from separating, and the wild 
dogs make an easy prey of all stragglers. It was in these intri- 
cate forests that Mr. Gellibrand met with his fate, his remains 
having been discovered about two years ago by Mr. Allan of 
Port Fairy. This latter gentleman has been the most successful 
in attempting to explore the western shores of the Cape, while 
Mr. Bell of Lake Colac succeeded in reaching the centre of the 
forest, and Mr. Roadknight penetrated in various directions to- 
wards the eastern shore. The country is described as being 
everywhere plentifully watered by running streams. His Honour 
the Superintendent has made two excursions into this wilderness, 
in both instances starting from the westward, in the last of which 
he succeeded in reaching the southern promontory. The route 
he pursued, however, was utterly impracticable as a dray road ; 
but it appears that he saw sufficient to excite his curiosity, and 
to induce him to follow up his own discoveries by the despatch 
of two Government expeditions, starting from different points. 

The sea-coast was traversed in the year 1843 by some seamen, 
who were wrecked in the Joanna, near Moonlight Head, which 
is situated between Port Fairy and Cape Otway. On reference 
to the Geelong Advertiser, of the 1st October 1843, we find that 
the Joanna was wrecked on the 22d of September, and that the 
captain, two seamen, and a passenger, whose lives were saved, 
determined to proceed eastward towards Geelong. They accord- 
ingly started on the 23d, and, after proceeding a short distance, 
found great difficulty in crossing a river, which the captain of 
the Joanna, and many others, had often supposed to be a port, 
but found now to be unapproachable even by boats. After tra- 
velling upwards of five miles, they effected a crossing at a flat 
where the water was about four feet deep. That evening they 
arrived at Cape Otway with much difficulty. No fresh water 
was found the first day. On the third day their stock of provi- 
sions failed. They then lived during the space of two days upon 
such shell fish as they could knock off the rocks. On the fifth 
and sixth days their route lay along sandy beaches and cliffs, 
where they could find no shell-fish. On the afternoon of the 
sixth day they came to a dead whale, the blubber of which had 
not been taken off, and upon which they were glad to satisfy their 
hunger. On the same evening they fell in with a party of 
natives, who did not, however, show any hostility, except in 
taking some of their clothes. In passing along the cliffs the tide 
was making very fast, so that they were compelled to swim round 
some parts of it, and received some very severe wounds against 
the rocks in doing so. When they again came to a sandy beach 
they halted to dry their clothes, and when one of their number 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 141 



went up the hank he saw a hut, which proved to belong to an 
out-station of Mr. Willis's, to the west of the Barwon Heads, 
where they were very kindly treated, and next day, the 30th, 
they arrived at Geelong, in a state of great exhaustion. 

" As the route of this party lay along the sea-beach, outside 
the cliffs and sand hills by which the coast is lined, they saw but 
little of the country. One thing is certain, that no river of any 
magnitude debouches into the sea between the Barwon and Cape 
Otway. As, however, this part of the coast is sheltered from 
the north-west and westerly winds, there is a probability that 
many safe road-steads may exist ; and from many concurrent 
circumstances there seems to be a probability of more useful 
results being arrived at from completing the survey of the eastern 
side of the Cape, than from following up Mr. Latrobe's track, on 
the weather-beaten shores around Moonlight Head. Wild and 
impracticable though this territory may at present be considered, 
we feel convinced that the day is not far distant when it will be 
profitably occupied by small settlers. The timber is everywhere 
of the most valuable description, including a description of cedar 
not found in any other part of the colony. Indeed, the whole 
country around the Cape is of a character so totally different, and 
possessing resources so peculiar, when compared with the pas- 
toral plains of the interior, that we consider it a far more promis- 
ing field for the non-stockholding 6 Yeomanry ' than even the 
lands which are at present taken up." 

The following notice of the result of Mr. Smythe's 
expedition, which is extracted from a recent number of 
the Port Phillip Patriot, under the head of Important 
Mineral Discoveries, will also be interesting to the 
general reader : — 

" The return of Mr. Surveyor Smythe, from his recent survey 
of that portion of the south-east coast of this continent — stretch- 
ing from Point Urquhart to about fifteen miles past Cape Otway 
— has put us in possession of some important information relative 
to the existence of coal and other minerals on the above surveyed 
section. Extensive veins of coal commence at a point thirty 
miles from the Port Phillip Heads (or eight miles from Point 
Urquhart) and extend to a distance of ten miles beyond Cape 
Otway. The veins dip in every direction, the general bearing 
being north-north-west and south-south- east. This mineral ap- 
pears to abound to a great extent, and in lai'ge seams of four feet 
in thickness, extending from four to six hundred feet in length ; 
it burns well, leaving a fine white ash and little or no smoke — 
resembling the purest description of cannel coal. Indications of 
copper ore, lead, and manganese discover themselves from Point 
Urquhart to Moonlight Head : the ore runs in horizontal veins 
of four miles in breadth, and varies from east-north- east and 



142 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



west-south-west. The most satisfactory and conclusive result o 
Mr. Smythe's expedition relates to the undeniable discovery of 
coal, and the immense extent to which it abounds ; the other 
minerals, though adjudged by competent judges to be valuable 
specimens of copper, lead, &c, have not yet been sufficiently 
tested to warrant our speaking with indisputable authority upon 
the point. With respect to the primary object of Mr. Smythe's 
recent progress of discovery, we find that an arduous and suc- 
cessful survey of coast line from Point Urquhart to about fifteen 
miles beyond Cape Otway, embracing a distance of about seventy 
miles, has been completed by this gentleman ; and this, too, 
within the space of one month (the term of his absence from 
Melbourne) during the most inclement season of the year — wind 
and rain incessantly prevailing, with but two days' intermission, 
throughout the whole period of his expedition. The country 
over which he passed was, in the aggregate, decidedly indifferent 
for either pastoral or agricultural purposes— although generally 
well watered. Mr. Smythe reports that no available country is 
discoverable within eighteen miles of the coast — the prevailing 
features being dense scrub, high sandy mountains, and volcanic 
disintegrations. The coast -line is bold, and skirted by perpen- 
dicular cliffs of from five hundred to one thousand feet above the 
level of the sea ; it has numerous bays, affording excellent an- 
chorage, being well protected from all but due easterly winds. 
We leave the public to draw their own conclusions from this 
exhilarating intelligence." 

A .more recent Port Phillip paper contains a notice 
to the following effect : — 

"The specimens of copper ore collected by Mr. Surveyor 
Smythe during his recent expedition, have been found to yield an 
average of forty-five per cent, of copper. Specimens of lead 
and copper ores had also been discovered in the county of Grant." 

As the melancholy fate of the emigrant ship Catara- 
quu which struck on a reef of rocks off King's Island 
in this vicinity and was totally lost, a year or two ago, 
may possibly prove a source of apprehension and alarm 
to intending emigrants, I shall state the few following 
particulars on the subject, which will doubtless tend to 
remove such, apprehensions, and which are probably 
not generally known in England. That unfortunate 
vessel had been running for four days previous to the 
awful catastrophe along the southern coast of Xew 
Holland, towards Bass' Straits, but without having had 
an observation of the sun, to ascertain the ship's posi- 
tion, during that period ; the weather having been 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 143 

cloudy or hazy. By dead reckoning, however, that is 
by calculation from the ship's course and rate of sail- 
ing, the captain conceived he was approaching Cape 
Otway, on the mainland, and hove the ship to, in the 
evening, or at 8 P.3I., as he was afraid to run on, 
although the wind was quite fair, lest he should be 
driven upon the land near that promontory. But the 
Surgeon Superintendent of the emigrants — Dr. Car- 
penter, I believe, was this gentleman's name — happen- 
ing to go upon deck some time after, and finding the 
ship hove-to with a fair wind, returned to the cabin and 
remonstrated rather sharply with the captain for not 
continuing his course when the wind was fair. The 
captain was unfortunately a weak man, and without 
the requisite decision of character ; he had never been 
out in the Australian colonies before, which the sur- 
geon had been ; and he would have been entitled, 
moreover, on his arrival in Port Phillip, to a gratuity 
for the safe conduct of the emigrants ; but as that 
gratuity depended upon the surgeon's certificate, wmich 
it was optional with the latter either to give or to with- 
hold, he was naturally desirous to retain the good 
graces of the surgeon, as they were expecting to enter 
the port next day. In these circumstances, therefore, 
the unfortunate man, contrary to his ovm letter judgment, 
ordered the ship to be again put before the wind ; and 
in an hour or two thereafter she struck, and upwards 
of four hundred persons perished miserably in the 
waters ! 

Had the ship only continued hove-to for a few hours 
longer, the land would have been visible at clay-break, 
and all would have been well. When the vessel 
struck, the captain believed it was on the mainland, 
near Cape Otway ; but it proved to be on the west 
coast of King's Island to the southward of that Cape, 
where it seems there is a current setting to the south- 
ward, of which the captain was not aware. But if 
" soundings" had been taken on board the Cataraqui, 
as ought to have been done, before she was put before 
the wind, the requisite information as to her real posi- 



144 



PHILLIPSL AND . 



tion would have been obtained from that source ; for 
there are soundings along the south coast of ISTew 
Holland a long way out from the land, and while the 
bottom, off the west coast of King's Island is rocky, 
" the fair- way," or channel through the Straits, pre- 
sents a bottom of fine white sand — a very accurate sur- 
vey of the Straits having recently been made by Cap- 
tain Stokes, of H. M. S. Beagle. Kings Island, more- 
over, which forms the southern side of the western 
entrance of Bass' Straits, is 34 miles from Cape Otway 
on the northern side. There is a reef, called the 
" Harbinger Reef," about four or five miles off the 
northern extremity of the island ; but the fair-way or 
channel, between that reef and Cape Otway, is 29 
miles wide, that is eight miles wider than the Straits 
between Dover and Calais. In such circumstances, all 
nautical men must allow that, with common precaution, 
there is no danger to be apprehended in approaching 
Bass' Straits from the westward. 

The native name of Buntingdale is Morone, which 
signifies a large March fly : this fly seems peculiar to 
the southern portions of the territory. 

I need scarcely add that my fellow-traveller and 
myself experienced a cordial welcome from Mr. Tuck- 
field and his wife. On our departure on the day follow- 
ing, Mr. T., accompanied by a smart intelligent native 
boy of the Colajin tribe, both on horseback, gave us 
a Scotch convoy of at least fifteen miles. The boy's 
name was TTanningura : it is the name of a plant or 
herb which grows on the moist banks of the Barwon 
river, and of which the natives make some use. 

The distance from Buntingdale to Lake Colac, which 
I have repeatedly mentioned already, is eight miles. 
The intervening country is of the same description as 
that on the Geelong side of the Mission Station ; con- 
sisting of beautiful plains, slightly undulating and very 
thinly wooded, and covered in every direction with a 
rich carpet of natural grass. For agricultural purposes 
the land is supposed to improve in approaching the 
lake, but it is all of first-rate quality. 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 145 

Over a considerable tract of country on this part of 
our route, the long grass on the plains, which the 
comparatively small number of sheep and cattle as yet 
depasturing upon it are unable to keep down, had been 
recently burnt — either accidentally, as is sometimes the 
case, or designedly by the black natives, that the 
young grass may shoot up after the next rain fresh and 
sweet for their cattle, the kangaroos; and wild turkeys 
v/ere occasionally seen stalking about upon the black- 
ened surface of the soil in search of the insects they 
prey upon, which are always in such cases dislodged 
from their coverts in great numbers by the fire. The 
wild turkey, or bustard, is a large bird, weighing from 
fifteen to eighteen pounds. It is very shy of man, and 
the appearance of any person on foot makes them take 
flight immediately ; but a person on horseback can 
come up to them quite closely. The natives approach 
them crawling on the ground on their hands and knees, 
bearing a thick branch before them, behind which they 
conceal themselves, remaining perfectly immoveable 
whenever the bird happens to look towards their^ and 
advancing cautiously wmen its attention is diverted. 
When they get near enough, they display with one 
hand, in front of this covert, a short twig with a small 
bird or other living animal dangling at the end of it; 
and when the turkey comes up — as he is sure to do, to 
examine the strange object and to peck at it — they 
throw a noose or lasso over his head, which they have 
ready for the purpose, with the other hand, and draw 
him in behind the bush, repeating the process while 
there are any other birds remaining to become their 
prey. It is an exceedingly ingenious contrivance, and 
they practise something of the same kind to get within 
spearing distance of the timid and suspicious kangaroo. 
But we are told by some, at least, of the squatters, 
that the black natives are no better than monkeys in 
point of intellect; and surely the squatters ought to 
know — for they have shot not a few of them ! 

Lake Colac is a beautiful sheet of water, of seven 
or eight miles long, and from two to three in breadth. 

K 



146 



PHILLIP SL A>" D. 



The water is quite fresh ; but whether it is deep enough 
to be available for navigation, so as to admit of a small 
steamboat to ply to and fro between the different towns 
and villages that will doubtless, at no distant period, 
occupy its banks, I did not think of ascertaining at the 
time ; but it struck me forcibly that its southern ex- 
tremity would form as fine a site for an inland town as 
I have seen anywhere in the colony ; and with the 
great extent of land, of the first quality for cultivation, 
which the immediate vicinity of the lake presents, it 
must necessarily attract a large population. The Go- 
vernment has, indeed, laid off a township in this 
locality, but almost the only house it boasts as yet is a 
public house ; which, I was sorry to find, was kept by 
a Scotch mechanic, who, I thought, might have been 
better employed. 

A few years ago, Mr. Robertson, a Scotch colonist 
of Hobart Town, Van Dieruan's Land, who has accu- 
mulated a handsome fortune in that Colony, took a 
special survey, as it was called, (or in other words, 
purchased 5000 acres of land at a pound an acre, with 
liberty to select it wherever he pleased,) on this beauti- 
ful lake. Our route lay across this purchase, which is 
still lying waste. It will be a splendid estate by and 
bye, and almost any part of it, in its natural state, will 
form as magnificent a park for its size around the 
future manor-house as any nobleman's in England, 
with all the aid of centuries of cultivation and adorn- 
ment. The trees that are thinly scattered over these 
delightful tracts are chiefly the graceful lightwood ; and 
so tastefully disposed are they in every direction, that 
it is difficult at first to bring one's self to believe that 
they have not been all planted for effect by some land- 
scape gardener. The botanical name of this beautiful 
tree is Exocarpus Cupressiformis. 

From four to six miles beyond Lake Colac to the 
westward, is a much larger lake, with equally fine land 
on its banks, especially to the southward, but of which 
the water is quite salt. The native name of this lake, 
which is at least from twenty to thirty miles in length, 
and which, I was informed, was probably ninety miles 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 1 47 



in circumference, following the indentations of the land, 
is Corangamite, from corang or coming , signifying bitter. 
This must have been the great lake or inland sea, ot 
which the natives to the northward informed Sir 
Thomas Mitchell in the year 1836, under the name of 
Kadong ; for, independently of dialectic differences, the 
letter E is often pronounced by the natives in such a 
way as to be mistaken by a stranger for the letter D, 
and there is no other large collection of water in the 
direction they indicated.* 

Lake Corangamite consists properly of two lakes, 
the smaller of which is situated at the north-western 
extremity of the larger, and is of a circular form, and 
probably not above eight or nine miles in circumference. 
In short, it is one of the numerous circular lakes of this 
singularly formed country. The large lake is of a very 
irregular and serpentine form, reminding one of the 
object to which the poet compares the poetaster's 
Alexandrine line. 

That, like a ivounded snake, drags its slow length along. 
It is a beautiful object, however, in the landscape, 
although the banks are generally rather bare of wood, 
and it presents many fine views. 

These lakes are supplied by a variety of considerable 
streams, most of which, however, are rather of the 
character of torrents, rising suddenly, and pouring 
down a vast quantity of water for a short time, as in 
winter or in seasons of rain, and then leaving their 
channels for months together merely a long series of 
pools, and occasionally quite dry. The principal 
streams that empty themselves into the lake in this 
way are, the Wuv&y-yattocfy at its north-eastern ex- 
tremity, and the Perring-^aZfod;, at the southern ; 
yallock being the aboriginal name for a river or stream. 
.These streams have been known to rise with such 
rapidity in a single night as to sweep away bullocks, 
drays, and even men encamped incautiously upon 
their banks. 

* The town in New Zealand recently destroyed by Held, the 
native chief, is pronounced indifferently Kororarika and Koro- 
radika. 



148 



PHILLIP SL AND . 



The neighbourhood of the Lake Corangamite ap- 
pears to have been one of the great centres of volcanic 
action in this part of the country. To the eastward, 
about twenty-five miles distant, are Mounts Gellibrand 
and Hesse, already mentioned ; but quite close to the 
lake, in the same direction, are Mount Baam, a volcanic 
hill of 410 feet in height above the plain, and the 
Warrian hills on its south-eastern shores, also of the same 
character, with a tract of country around them of 
which the igneous origin is as clearly evident as the 
formation is remarkably singular, called by the colonists 
Stoney Rises. Again, to the north-westward of the 
smaller lake, which is called by the black natives Gnar- 
purt, and is situated north-westward of the large one, 
is Mount Elephant, another extinct volcano, rising to 
an elevation of 680 feet above the plain ; and within 
the same distance of the large lake, to the westward 
and south-westward, as far as its south-western ex- 
tremity, there are various other hills and elevations, 
undoubtedly of the same character and origin. To the 
southward of its southern extremity there is another 
tract of the peculiar formation called Stoney Rises, 
strongly indicative of powerful volcanic action, over 
which we have now to pass. 

Our clue course to the westward would have taken 
us along the southern shore of the lake, quite clear of 
these Stoney Rises, which must be a prodigious evil to 
the poor bullocks that have to drag the heavily laden 
drays of the squatters over their steep and multitudi- 
nous elevations ; but to follow such a course would 
have implied a bridge across the Perring-yallock 
towards its mouth, which, however, does not yet exist. 
I must do the squatters on these rich plains the justice 
to acknowledge that they do not complain of a little 
inconvenience and delay of this kind ; — a degree of 
forbearance and resignation, which, however, is not 
altogether unaccountable ; for the existence of a bridge 
in such a locality would imply the occupation of the 
surrounding country by a numerous agricultural popu- 
lation, employed in raising food for man ; and this is a 
consummation which, as it would somewhat interfere 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 149 

with their own splendid sheep and cattle runs, these 
gentlemen are by no means anxious to precipitate. 
Indeed, some of them are charitable enough to recom- 
mend, that if such a population should by any means 
be drafted out to Phillipsland in considerable numbers, 
from amidst the redundant myriads of England, they 
should by all means take possession of the better parts 
of the Cape Otway country, which is unsuitable for sheep 
and cattle, and cut down those magnificent trees with 
which it is covered, and which it would probably cost 
them not more than five pounds an acre to clear off, 
before they could either sow or reap ; as it would be 
preposterous, in their opinion, to allow such hard- 
working people as the peasantry of England to take 
possession of the beautiful plains to the northward, 
which are naturally ready for the plough, it is true, 
but on which gentlemen squatters can now rear their 
sheep and cattle so freely. In short, the watchword 
in certain quarters in this new-found-land, so admirably 
adapted by the hand of the beneficent Creator for the 
habitation of man, is not that of our courteous neigh- 
bours across the channel, Place aux dames! — make 
way for the ladies ; but Place aux bestiaux — make way 
for the bullocks ! 

The Border Police Station, for this part of the coun- 
try, is finely situated to the right of the road, near an 
extensive swamp, with the Perring-yallock close by ; 
there being just a sufficiency of wood in the vicinity, 
along the banks of the stream, to render the situation 
beautifully picturesque. 

A few miles beyond the police barrack, we halted for 
a short time at the squatting station of Messrs. Richard- 
son and Scott, two gentlemen from Scotland, who have 
an extensive cattle-run in this neighbourhood, the land 
being rather too moist for sheep. The site of the 
cottage, which was in the usual bush style, appeared 
to have been very tastefully chosen on a rising ground 
adjoining either the Perring-yallock or one of its 
tributary creeks, and it exhibited another evidence of 
a cultivated taste, as well as of a proper sense of the 
comforts of civilization, which I am always gratified 



150 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



to observe at a squatter's station — I mean a neat garden, 
with ornamental shrubs and flowers. At this station, 
our Mend Mr. Tuckfield, and the native boy TTar- 
ringura, took their leave of us, and returned to the Mis- 
sion station at Bnntingdale. 

The Stoney Rises commence a few miles beyond 
Messrs. Richardson and Scott's station. They occupy 
an extent of country of about ten miles square, or a 
hundred square miles altogether, and evidently consist 
of the immense outpourings of an extinct volcano. 
They rise quite abruptly from the bed of a small stream, 
on the bank of which the lava tide has apparently 
stopped short in its all-desolating progress ; and from 
that point to their equally abrupt termination on the 
plains beyond them to the westward, they form the 
most singular country I have ever seen. I recollect, 
when a boy, of observing with much interest the curi- 
ous convolutions, described on the interior surface of a 
large shallow plate or basin, by a stream from an im- 
mense pot ful of overboiled sowens* intended for a band 
of haymakers. Somewhat similar appears to have 
been the course of the numerous lava- streams from the 
huge central pot or crater of the Stoney Rises, over a 
basin of ten miles square. Sometimes our course was 
along the summit of one of these streams, which appear 
to have flowed in every direction, and which occasion- 
ally form small basins resembling distinct craters ; at 
others, at right angles to them, and again along the 
hollows of the intervening valleys. In some of these 
the soil is very rich and the grass luxuriant, while the 
lightwood, from being completely sheltered from the 
winds, attains a height and a girth which it seldom 
reaches on the plains. 

Broken and unpromising as this tract of country 
appeared, we found a part of it occupied as a sheep 



* A Scotch dish, in much use among the peasantry in summer. 
It is formed from the farina which still adheres to the skin or 
covering of the oat, after the kernel has been extracted and 
ground into oatmeal. It is very light and pleasant. 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 151 



station by Mr. Roadknight, an enterprising native-born 
colonist from Van Dieman's Land ; and as we happened 
to lose our way across the Rises, we were glad to find a 
guide, at a newly erected hut belonging to that gen- 
tleman, in the person of a solitary female, with one or 
two very young children, who told us, w T ith an air of 
perfect contentment with her situation, that her hus- 
band was out at no great distance with th-e sheep. 
The life of a shepherd in Australia is so very 
solitary that few people from the mother-country, espe- 
cially from large towns, like it at first ; and many free 
emigrants declare, from some slight knowledge of it, or 
rather from exaggerated reports of its extreme discom- 
fort and seclusion, that they would rather be banished 
altogether than go a-shepherding. But when a family 
is brought up to that sort of life, and especially when 
they come to acquire a direct interest in the results of 
their own labour and attention, they take to it as 
willingly as to any other. There are surely pleasures in 
a shepherd's life for those who have a capacity for 
enjoying them ; otherwise the poets would never have 
praised it so highly, nor the patriarchs adopted it as 
their own. " Thy servants are shepherds," said the 
brethren of Joseph to Pharaoh., " both we, and also 
our fathers." 

It was quite dark when we reached the plains be- 
yond the Stoney Rises ; and as they were crossed by 
innumerable cattle tracks, w r e lost our way again, and 
had some difficulty in finding the comfortable cottage 
of the Messrs. Manifold — respectable squatters from 
Van Dieman's Land, but originally from the North of 
England — on the Lake Pooruinbeet. There, however, 
we met with a cordial reception, after a ride of thirty- 
three miles from the Mission Station at Buntingdale. 

From the faint gleam of light which the bright con- 
stellations of the Southern Hemisphere were throwing 
around us in the moonless night, as we approached our 
present resting place, it was evident that we had 
reached a highly interesting point of our journey ; and 
I was not disappointed in the expectations I had 



152 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



formed, when the glorious sun arose, on the morning 
of the following clay, to illuminate the scene. It was 
indeed a scene of surpassing interest, from the records 
of creation which it silently disclosed to us, as well as of 
singular beauty. 

The Lake Poorumbeet, on the precipitous banks of 
which the Messrs. Manifold's cottage is most romanti- 
cally situated, is nearly circular, being about a mile and 
a-half in length, by a mile in breadth, and about four 
miles in circumference. It is always full, and much 
frequented by water- fowl ; the water is deliciously 
fresh, and its depth is unknown. The banks are pre- 
cipitous, except at two or three points, as at Messrs. 
Manifold's cottage, where they gradually sink down to 
the level of the surrounding country, as if to render the 
water accessible to man and beast ; and it is at these 
points only that they are at all wooded. 

Now it is impossible to contemplate the remarkable 
phenomenon which this lake presents, without being 
convinced, beyond the possibility of doubt, that it is 
merely the crater of an extinct volcano. For a con- 
siderable distance on either side of the large diameter 
of the lake, the land appears to have been heaved up 
by the prodigious subterranean force that originally 
formed the crater ; for the banks on the opposite sides 
are ninety feet high above the level of the water, while 
the lake itself is perhaps not more than twenty or 
twenty-five feet below that of the plains. The rock, of 
which the banks are everywhere composed, consists of a 
coarse grit or sandstone, disposed in horizontal layers, 
that can be easily cut into a rough sort of pavement ; 
for I afterwards observed it used in this way consider- 
ably farther to the westward. Now it would appear 
that this grit, which is formed at a greater or lesser 
depth from the surface according to circumstances, is 
the general basis or substratum of these extensive plains, 
having doubtless been formed in the course of past 
ages, from the decomposition of more ancient rocks, at 
the bottom of the sea. Of the thickness of this sub- 
stratum, we have as yet no means of judging; for it is 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 



153 



evidently much more than ninety feet, the height of the 
precipitous banks above the lake, at the only place 
where the upper portions of it are measurable. How 
prodigious then must have been the subterranean force 
exerted in this vicinity, to heave up a mass of solid 
rock of such immense thickness as this substratum, and 
then to burst through it, to give vent to the imprisoned 
matter below ! 

But what may this matter have consisted of, and 
what has become of it? These are questions more 
easily put than answered. It may doubtless have been 
water in a state of vapour or steam, which would leave 
no trace behind.* Or if it was matter of greater con- 
sistency, it may have been washed away from the sur- 
rounding surface by the action of water ; for as it is 
evident, from Mr. Latrobe's communication already 
quoted, that there has been a considerable rise in the 
level of the land along this coast, that rise may have 
been much greater than Mr. Latrobe supposes, and the 
whole of these plains may have been many fathoms 
deep under water, long after the crater of Poorumbeet 
was formed. If this supposition is well founded, we 
have probably a satisfactory explanation both of the 
existence, and of the gradual disappearance or filling 
up, of the numerous circular lakes of this country ; for 
as it can scarcely be doubted that these lakes were 
originally volcanic craters, it must be obvious that they 
would gradually assume their present appearance — 
that of being nearly filled up, like the Lake Murdi- 
warry, and various others — if they were long under 
water, whether they were originally formed as subma- 
rine volcanoes or not. 

There is something also peculiarly worthy of obser- 
vation in the composition of the coarse grit or sand- 
stone, that forms the basis or substratum of these ex- 
tensive plains. When examined closely it is found to 



* A volcano near the city of Guatimala, in Central America, 
once vomited up an immense quantity of water, that almost swept 
the city away. 



154 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



contain numerous nodules of igneous rocks : thereby 
demonstrating that before the lowest strata of this vast 
pavement began to be laid in the successive accumula- 
tions of sand and disintegrated rocks in the depths of 
the sea, there had been numerous volcanoes blazing 
and pouring forth their torrents of liquid fire over the 
surrounding lands. The imagination can scarcely travel 
back to a period of time sufficiently remote for the ex- 
planation of these phenomena.* 

The Lake Poorumbeet is supplied from springs under- 
ground. It has an outlet to the southward, where the 
water that escapes from it forms first a marsh, and 
afterwards a small creek or stream. The view from its 
elevated banks is very fine, particularly to the east- 
ward, where Mount Baam and the TTarrian Hills shoot 
up their volcanic cones into the azure sky ; and I could 
not help exclaiming with Pedro Alvarez Cabral, the 
discoverer of the Brazils, as he gazed wistfully upon 
the beautiful green point that projects into the Atlantic 
at Pernambuco. on which the city of Olinda was after- 
wards built, "O que bonita parte para fun dar huma 
villa !" O what a beautiful spot for founding a city ! 

The country around this lake forms a splendid cattle 
run. The Messrs. Manifold tried sheep upon it in 
the first instance, but found it would not answer ; the 
ground being too moist, and the grass too luxuriant. 



* The reader will not suppose that these appearances are at 
all inconsistent, in my opinion, with the Mosaic account of the 
Creation. On the contrary, I have long been of opinion, that 
the first, and the first part of the second verse of the first chapter 
of Genesis, merely describe the original act of creation on the 
one hand, and the condition of the terraqueous globe on the 
other, as it sprung into existence from the hand of the Creator ; 
the latter part of the second verse — and the Spirit of God moved 
upon the face of the waters — being a general description of the 
long series of changes that subsequently passed upon the face of 
our planet, in the course it may be of millions of years, as more 
particularly described in the following verses. In this view the 
utmost demands upon time, on the part of the modern geologist, 
can be freely met by the believer in Divine .Revelation, without 
doing violence to the Mosaic Record. 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 155 



In such situations these delicate animals are affected 
with a disease called foot-root, somewhat resembling 
the gout in man, and arising from a similar cause — too 
high feeding ! Messrs. Manifold have upwards of a 
hundred and fifty square miles, or about a hundred thou- 
sand acres of this superb pasture-land in their run ; for 
which they pay to the Government, in the shape of 
Squatting License Fees, £40 per annum. They can buy 
steers occasionally, in the Murrumbidgee country to the 
northward, at seventeen shillings a head; which, when 
fattened, (a process that requires only a year at the ut- 
most, in the rich pastures of this neighbourhood.) are 
worth £3 each. They had recently realized, from the 
hides and tallow only, of a lot of cattle which they had 
boiled down, as it is called in the colony, £3, 12s. per 
head in London. At the period of our visit, they had 
just purchased seventeen hundred head of lean cattle of 
this description in the northern interior, to be fattened 
for the tallow and hides alone, if it should not pay to 
dispose of the carcasses to the butchers. I beg to as- 
sure the reader, that I did not ferret out these articles 
of intelligence from our worthy host, for future inser- 
tion in this volume ; for I asked no questions on the 
subject, and cannot therefore be accused of betraying 
confidence. They were related to me, by a person of 
superior intelligence and credibility, residing in the 
same part of the country, whom I happened to meet in 
the course of our third day's ride, quite as a matter of 
notoriety in the neighbourhood, and as illustrating the 
superior capabilities of the district. At all events, the 
reader will infer from such particulars that Squatting 
is occasionally a very profitable occupation in Austra- 
lia ; and he will not be surprised to learn that amid 
the hue-and-cry which gentlemen of this class in the 
colony are perpetually making for additional labour, in 
the shape of hired servants from the mother-country, 
to tend their rapidly increasing flocks and herds, there 
should, in such circumstances, be a pretty strong feeling 
already created in the country, decidedly opposed to the 
advancement of its best interests in the extensive influx 



156 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



of an agricultural population. Such a population would 
doubtless trench a little upon the Squatters' domains, 
and thereby affect the craft by which they have their 
wealth ; but believing as I do, that the waste lands of 
the colonies are the common property of the nation, and 
that the best interests both of the mother-country and 
of the colonies can only be promoted by their speedy 
occupation and settlement by an industrious popula- 
tion, I cannot regard the opposite interests of a limited 
class, however powerful in the colonies, as worthy to 
be compared for one moment with those of the redund- 
ant millions of the people of Great Britain and Ireland. 

The reader is not to suppose, however, that those 
anti-social and selfish feelings, to which I have just al- 
luded, are at all universal among the Squatters of 
Phillipsland. On the contrary, there are many of that 
class who willingly acknowledge that the influx of a 
numerous agricultural population, from the mother- 
country,, would benefit them much more in raising the 
price of their stock, than it could possibly injure them in 
curtailing the extent of their runs. And there are not 
wanting men of enlightened minds and generous dis- 
positions among the Squatters of Australia, who would 
scorn to put their own private interests in competition 
with the welfare of their adopted country, and the hap- 
piness of their race. In conversing on the subject with 
William Learmonth, Esq., J.P., an extensive Squatter 
from Van Dieman's Land, in the Port Fairy District, 
— a tract of country somewhat a-head of our present 
reckoning/as nautical men would say — that gentleman 
observed that, " for his own part, he would willingly 
surrender the half of his run to promote the settlement 
of a numerous and industrious free immigrant popula- 
tion from the mother-country, on these fertile plains. " 

For the next seven or eight miles of our route north- 
westward from the Lake Poorumbeet, the country con- 
tinued pretty much of the same description as before — 
rich plains, slightly undulating, with a thick carpeting 
of grass, but with a somewhat greater frequency and 
variety of natural wood. Near the circular Lake Tim- 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 



157 



boon, of about a mile in diameter, but in which there 
is nothing particularly remarkable, we halted at a re- 
spectable Bush Inn, recently established for the accom- 
modation of travellers to and from the westward, by 
a Mr. Story, a native of Somersetshire in England ; 
whose father, a substantial farmer in that county, had 
emigrated with his large family to Van Dieman's Land 
about nine years before, paying the whole expense of 
their passage out from his own resources. Mr. Story, 
the younger, had been five years in Port Phillip, and 
as he had been for a considerable part of that time 
principal overseer on the large Squatting establishment 
of Benjamin Boyd, Esq., late Member of Council for 
Port Phillip, at Lake Colac, he was well known to my 
friend and fellow-traveller, Dr. Thomson. About two 
miles from Mr. Story's cottage, Mount Leura, one of 
the numerous volcanic peaks of this country, shoots up 
its solitary cone, on which I was told there were clearly 
discernible the remains of a crater ; and as I expressed 
a wish to visit the mount, Mr. Story very kindly offered 
to accompany me thither on horseback, and to furnish 
me for the purpose with a fresh horse, while my fellow- 
traveller, to whom such scenes were no novelty, should 
' 6 take his ease in his inn," and our faithful steeds en- 
joy a benefit in the stable. 

For miles around Mount Leura fragments of igneous 
rocks, which have evidently been ejected from its cra- 
ter, are ever and anon seen protruding from the soil, 
which consists in a considerable degree of decomposed 
volcanic matter, and exhibits the deep chocolate colour 
that usually characterizes soil of this description ; that 
of the plains being of a deep black colour, as different 
as possible. The sides of the mountain are plentifully 
covered with scoriae and fragments of rocks that have 
obviously undergone the action of fire ; but I did not 
observe any of the light pumice-stone, or cellular lava, 
which I afterwards found upon the surface in such 
large masses in the volcanic region of the Mount Ma- 
cedon district. The ascent of the hill was so steep, es- 
pecially towards the summit, that we had to alight 
from our horses and walk up. There was only, perhaps, 



158 



PHILLIP SLAKD. 



a fifth or sixth part of the rini of the ancient crater 
remaining, and we had, consequently, in accordance 
with the ancient maxim — ex pede Herculein — to judge 
of the form and dimensions of the giant from his foot. 
But there was no possibility of mistaking the character 
of the mountain from this fragment. The portion of 
the rim that remained w T as perfect, and its fine circu- 
lar sweep, both within and without, proclaimed at once 
both its origin and its uses. Besides, a conical hill 
had been formed, as is often the case in volcanoes, in 
the centre of the crater ; and that hill was still stand- 
ing in its original form, and apparently at its original 
height, covered with trees and brushwood, its summit 
being nearly on a level with that of the exterior rim. 
I should consider the height of Mount Leura to be up- 
wards of six hundred feet. 

The weather having been very hot for some time 
previous to our journey, the country to the north-west- 
ward was now all on fire ; that is, the long dry grass 
on extensive tracts of the plains had been burnt, or 
was still burning. From this cause the atmosphere 
was charged with a thick haze, which very much li- 
mited our view, and occasionally even obscured the 
sun. Still, however, I was able to count not fewer 
than twelve volcanic cones in the surrounding country, 
within the limited field of vision from the summit of 
Mount Leura, and also as many lakes, several of which 
were evidently the craters of other extinct volcanoes. 
Four of these lakes were of considerable size ; the 
others were all much smaller. In short, it is a coun- 
try of surpassing interest to the geologist, and can 
doubtless " a tale unfold" to those who shall have 
science and perseverance enough to extract it, respect- 
ing the past mutations of the surface of our globe in 
this part of Australia, that will repay both the time 
and expense that will be necessary to obtain such de- 
sirable information. For this, however, and for va- 
rious other objects of equal importance, it will be in- 
dispensably requisite that Phillipsland should first have 
a separate and independent colonial government of its 
own. I attempted during the session of the Legisla- 



THE WESTERN" PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 



159 



tive Council of New South Yrales, for the year 1845, 
to obtain a small appropriation of the public money for 
the commencement of a Geological Survey of the Co- 
lony, such as has been recently ordered by the Legis- 
lature of Canada, doubtless after the enlightened 
example of several of the Northern States of the 
American Union; but both the Government, and several, 
although not a majority of the Representative Members 
opposed the measure ; the former for reasons best known 
to themselves, for the latter had really a good and valid 
reason, as they rightly conceived that the expense of 
such a service should properly be laid upon the Land 
Revenue, over which the Council has no control. I 
have no doubt, however, that if Phillipsland had a Re- 
presentative Legislature of its own, even upon the same 
inferior footing as that of New South Wales, one of its 
earliest acts would be either to make the requisite ap- 
propriation for so important an object, or to use its in- 
fluence with the Imperial Government to have it un- 
dertaken at the expense of the Land Revenue.* 

* The following is an Extract of the Votes and Proceedings of the 
Legislative Council of Neic South Wales, for Tuesday, 26th August 
1845 :— 

Geological Survey of the Colony: — Dr. Lang moved, pur- 
suant to notice, that an Address be presented to His Excellency 
the Governor, praying that His Excellency will be pleased to 
place upon the Estimates for 1846. such a sum as to His Excel- 
lency shall seem fit, with a view to make suitable provision for the 
commencement of a Geological Survey of this Colony. 
Debate ensued. Question put ; Council divided : — 



Ayes, 10. 
Mr. W. C. Wentworth, 
Dr. Bland, 
Mr. Bowman, 
Mr. Robinson, 
Mr. Lawson, 
Mr. Wild, 
Dr. Lang, 
Mr. Lord, 
Mr. Murray, 
Dr. Nicholson, (Teller.) 



The Colonial Secretary, 
Mr. Lowe, 
Mr. Suttor, 
Mr. YVindeyer, 
The Attornev-General, 
Mr. Allan, 
Captain Dumaresq, 
Mr. Icely, 
Mr. Lamb, 

The Auditor- General, 

Mr. Bradley, 

Mr. Maearthur, 

The Colonial Treasurer, 

The Collector of Customs, 

Mr. Cowper,(Teller.) 



Noes, 15. 



160 PHILLIPSLAND. 



Many of the lakes of this country are quite salt, 
much more so, indeed, than the waters of the ocean ; 
and in summer, when the extensive evaporation that 
always takes place at that season leaves a large extent 
of the surface usually covered with the water, and 
sometimes the whole bed of the lake, quite dry, the 
salt is found in large crystals to the depth of three or 
four inches, and sometimes even of six, within the usual 
water-mark. It is of excellent quality, and is used for 
all domestic purposes by the squatters in this part of 
the territory, requiring only to be pounded a little when 
used on the table. Mr. Story obtains the salt he re- 
quires for his establishment from the large lake 
Corangamite, and he has only to take a bullock-dray in 
the morning, accompanied with a few black natives to 
assist in collecting the salt, at the proper season, to be 
able to return in the evening with a load of two tons. 

Sir Thomas Mitchell submitted specimens of the 
water from several of the salt lakes in the neighbour- 
hood of the northern Grampians, about a hundred miles 
to the north-westward of our present position, to Pro- 
fessor Faraday, who, on analyzing them, found that 
they were all " solutions of common salt, much sur- 
passing the ocean, or even the Mediterranean, in the 
quantity of salt dissolved. Besides the common salt 
there are present, (in comparatively small quantity,) 
portions of sulphates and muriates of lime and mag- 
nesia : the waters are neutral, and except in strength 
very much resemble those of the ocean. That labelled 
Greenliill Lake had a specific gravity of 1049.4, and 
three measured ounces gave on evaporation 97 grains 
of dry salts. That labelled Mitre Lake had a specific 
gravity of 1038.6, and three measured ounces of it 
yielded 77 grains of dry saline matter. The water 
labelled Cocka jemmy Lake, had a specific gravity of 
1055.3, and the amount of dry salts from three mea- 
sured ounces was 113 grains." 

" If these remains of salt water," observes Sir Thomas 
Mitchell, " are of less volume than they have been for- 
merly, as may be presumed from these circumstances ; 
and if the waters, according to Professor Faraday's 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 



161 



analysis. 4 are solutions of common salt, and, except in 
strength, very much resemble those of the ocean,' we 
cannot have much difficulty in believing that the sea 
deposited the water in these situations at no very re- 
mote period."* 

On the contrary, there is, in my humble opinion, so 
much difficulty in believing anything of the kind, that 
it is altogether out of the question ; for this reason, 
that not a few of these lakes are dry in every season 
of protracted drought, and filled again with salt water 
after the next period of protracted rain ; thereby demon- 
strating that the saltness is in the subsoil of the lakes, 
and not originally in the surface-water. Besides, the 
Lake Corangamite, the largest of the lakes of Phil- 
lipsland— which, however, Sir Thomas Mitchell did not 
see — is the common receptacle for numerous fresh-water 
streams from the northward, as well as for several from 
the southward, which in all probability must have filled 
its capacious basin ten thousand times over since the 
surrounding land was raised above the level of the ocean. 

Dr. Learmonth, a highly respectable squatter in the 
Bunninyong district, at present in this country, brought 
home with him a quantity of tne salt deposited on the 
shores of Lake Bolac, a lake which I shall have occa- 
sion to mention more particularly in the sequel. It 
was analyzed by Dr. Thomas Anderson of Edinburgh, 
who describes it as " a remarkably fine common salt ;" 
and Dr. Learmonth adds, that ;> in looking through the 
analysis in Ure's dictionary, it will be found finer than 
any there." The following is the result of Dr. Ander- 
son's analysis : — 

Analysis of Australian Salt. 
Chloride of Sodium, (common salt,) . 99.654 
Sulphate of Soda, . . . . 0.104 
Chloride of Magnesium, . . . 0.052 
Insoluble residue, .... 0.190 

Lime, a trace. 

100.000 

* Three Expeditions Into the Interior of Australia. By Sir T. 
L. Mitchell &c. 6cc> ii. 265 and S68. 

L 



162 PHILLIPSLAND. 

Mr. Lyell, the distinguished geologist, informs us 
somewhere in his admirable work on the Principles of 
Geology, that the production of salt is not an unfre- 
quent accompaniment of volcanic action ; and in what- 
ever manner the fact is to be accounted for, there can 
be no doubt that the extensive prevalence of this 
mineral in the volcanic regions of the territory of 
Phiilipsland is in some way connected with the long 
dormant forces of its extinct volcanoes. In the district 
of Upper Hunter's River, in New South Wales, there 
are also salt ponds and brine springs ; but that region 
must also have been at one time the scene of volcanic 
action, for its principal rocks are of the trap formation. 

From his general intelligence, combined with his 
previous training and experience — in England, in Van 
Dieman's Land, and in Port Phillip — I was induced to 
regard Mr. Story as a superior authority in all matters 
of farming in his adopted country. Of the general 
capabilities of that country he had formed the highest 
opinion, maintaining that, acre for acre, it was quite 
capable of sustaining as dense a population as Great 
Britain. In the district of Lake Colac and around 
Mount Leura, there was much land, he observed, of 
which the natural pasture would maintain a bullock an 
acre all the year round ; whereas, in Somersetshire, in 
England, the very best land, land which has been long 
in cultivation, is allowed to be capable of maintaining 
only a bullock and a sheep for seven months yearly, 
the animals being stall-fed for the other five months. 
In Phiilipsland, however, the grass grows all the year 
round, and stall-feeding is quite unnecessary. This 
was in perfect accordance with what I had heard from 
another quarter as the observation of Mr. Mack, a re- 
spectable farmer who holds a tract of purchased land 
on lease in the Lake Colac district, viz., that he could 
fence off 20 acres of land in that district that would main- 
tain twenty bullocks or heifers all the year round. Mr. 
Story had himself mowed a ton of hay off the acre of 
the land around Mount Leura ; and the hay, he ob- 
served, cannot be cut so close to the ground in that 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 



163 



country as in England, from the greater inequalities 
of the surface, the land having never been ploughed. 

In the Mount Leura district, Mr. Story observed, 
the country is remarkably well watered, and rain is 
frequent. Springs are abundant, as well as creeks or 
small streams, and water-holes or natural ponds ; and 
in places where there is naturally no surface-water of 
a permanent character, it is often practicable to pro- 
cure a permanent supply at a trifling expense, by 
damming up some small wintry creek or torrent, of 
which the bed is regularly left dry for months together 
every summer. It was in this way that Mr. Harding, a 
squatter in the Mount Gellibrand District, had not only 
obtained a permanent supply of water at his station , 
but formed an ornamental lake of a mile long and of 
eighteen feet deep, a case to which I have already had 
occasion to refer on the authority of Mr. Story. 

Mr. Story was of opinion that if an extensive emi- 
gration of respectable agriculturists were taking place 
to that part of the territory, and a cheap and expeditious 
mode of communication, which he considered the great 
desideratum, provided, the land should not be divided 
into smaller farms than a quarter of a section, or 160 
acres each. Such an extent of land, he observed, 
would allow of a hundred acres being kept under cul- 
tivation and would leave sufficient to afford pasture for 
the working cattle. Of such a farm, he added, six or 
eight acres should be sown every winter with turnips, 
which grow splendidly in that part of the country, as 
indeed all green crops do. 

Mr. Story ridiculed the idea of the squatters endea- 
vouring to have their present tenures converted into 
leases of twenty-one years at the present rates of pay- 
ment, and maintained that if leases of such a term were 
granted, there were many industrious persons of the 
humbler classes in the colony who would be both able 
and willing to pay £50 a year for a single section ; as 
that extent of land in the Western District would 
enable such persons to keep a herd of two hundred 
head of cattle, and to cultivate a sufficient extent of 
land besides. 



164: 



PHILLIPSL AND , 



On resuming our journey, we passed, within a mile 
of Mr. Story's, two small lakes to the left of the road, 
each about a mile in circumference. They were both 
quite circular ; the water of the one is very bitter, that 
of the other brackish, but suitable for sheep and cattle. 
Of the volcanic origin of both there can be no doubt ; 
they seemed like large deep cauldrons, and were 
doubtless originally meant for something much hotter 
than cold water. But what is most remarkable in 
these two lakes, although only a-quarter of a-mile 
apart, the water level in the one is thirty feet higher 
than in the other. 

A few miles beyond Mr. Story's we crossed the Ca- 
ranbalac or Taylor's Eiver. I do not know to whom 
this stream is indebted for its English name, but it was 
surely the height of bad taste to substitute such a com- 
monplace designation, for whomsoever it may have 
been given, for the beautiful aboriginal name which 
the stream has doubtless borne from time immemorial. 
As we have taken the country from the natives — land, 
rivers, mountains, lakes, and all — surely we ought to 
take the names also. We may rest assured that in 
every case they are highly descriptive of the natural 
features or qualities of the scenery, or object named, 
whether we can translate them or not ; and in nine 
cases out of ten, they are incomparably better than those 
we are in the habit of substituting for them. There is 
no person to whom Australian literature is more highly 
indebted for the preservation of native names than Sir 
Thomas Mitchell, the present talented Surveyor-Gene- 
ral of Xew^ South Wales ; vet. 

*m ^rTamo^miW&rg gfew Fba& \ snebapAd-oiH wsl 
Aliquando dormitat Homerus. 

00 *II8 fit OS 6&li^BltJS_tfrofitf«77 fv )rfftfr«ra£r l->-»F : - rf 

For instance, Sir Thomas' friend, Captain or Major 
Hopkins may, for any thing we know to the contrary, 
have been a very creditable officer in the Peninsula ; 
but what a name for a river — The Hopkins ! There is 
a river of that name somewhat a-head of our present 
position, which although, at the place where I subse- 
quently crossed it, much higher up the country and 
about seventy miles from its mouth, its current might 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 165 



be hopped over — a circumstance which may perhaps be 
regarded by the future etymologist as the origin of its 
name — is really a fine river towards its mouth, much 
superior, for example, to the English Avon or the Scot- 
tish Doon. But what future Australian poet will ever 
be able to get a river with such a name as The Hop- 
kins into his immortal verse ? Let him only try how 
it will look as a substitute for either of the British 
streams I have just mentioned ; as, for instance, 

Thou soft-flowing Hopkins, by thy silver stream, &c., or. 
Ye banks an' braes o' bonnie Hopkins, &c. 

In short, the thing is impossible ; the river is doomed 
to a mere prosaic existence, as the Scotch lawyers say, 
" while grass grows and water runs :" it can never be 
immortalized in Australian song. 

At the distance of fifteen miles from Lake Poorumbeet, 
we reached the station of Neil Black, Esq. J. P., a 
gentleman from Scotland, who, I understood, is manag- 
ing an extensive Squatting Establishment for certain 
parties at home. Mr. Black's own residence, and the 
farm buildings adjoining it, which are quite of a supe- 
rior character to those generally seen in the bush, are 
very pleasantly situated on a gentle acclivity overlook- 
ing an extensive plain, with the river Caranbalac— for 
I cannot allow myself to call it Taylor's River — mean- 
dering through it, beautifully fringed with wood. Mr. 
Black was not at home on our arrival, but he returned 
before our departure, and gave us a cordial welcome. 
The people in his employment, as farm-servants and 
shepherds, are principally from Scotland, including a 
few Highlanders ; and I was gratified at observing that 
they had neat chimneys regularly built of stone and 
lime, and whitewashed without, attached to their cot- 
tages, instead of the unsightly appendage indicating 
the fire-place uniformly observable in the bush houses 
of New South Wales. 

The country in this neighbourhood is really splendid. 
The soil is a rich black mould, which, when cultivated, 
produces luxuriant crops of whatever is usually grown 



166 



PHILLEPSLAND. 



in the country. The land is equally adapted for agri- 
cultural and for pastoral purposes, and it continues of 
precisely the same superior quality quite down to the 
coast, which is distant about thirty miles from Mr. 
Black's station. Towards the coast, indeed, it is more 
densely wooded, and better watered, for there seems to 
be not only a sufficiency, but a superabundance of rain 
in this part of the country, doubtless from the imme- 
diate vicinity of the Great Southern Ocean ; but it is 
of first-rate character throughout. About ten miles 
from the coast the Caranbalac falls over a precipice of 
forty feet into the Hopkins, which empties itself into 
the Great Southern Ocean at Warranambool or Lady 
Bay, a small but superior harbour recently discovered, 
where the Government have very lately laid off a town, 
which is likely to become a place of some importance. 
To the westward of TVarranarnbool, about twenty-five 
miles, is Port Fairy, and the rising town of Belfast. 
The harbour, or rather road-stead at this locality, is 
inferior to that of AVarranambool, although susceptible 
of improvement ; but the land around it, and indeed 
all the way from Warranambool to Port Fairy, is of 
the finest quality imaginable, and produces enormous 
crops of grain* 

On Jjfc Black's station, about two miles from his cot- 
tage, there is another of those volcanic cones with which 
this singularly formed country abounds, called by its 
aboriginal name Mount Xoorat. The crater is in per- 
fect preservation, and is 230 feet deep. I should glad- 
ly have visited so interesting an object, but I had al- 
ready spent a considerable time at Mount Leura, and 
besides the day was exceedingly hot, and we had still 
twelve miles to ride ere we could reach the termina- 

Mooid boB yi9iBW ffaiw byllh nxsgB si looq vistA. 

' ff ~~ ^ ~~ 

* I was told by a Scotch Squatter on the Glenelg River, since 
deceased, that the land of Mr. Campbell, a respectable settler in 
the Port Fairy District, had averaged 55 bushels of wheat per acre, 
for several years in succession, and that 60 bushels an acre had 
actually been reaped in that district. 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 167 

tion of our third day's journey. There is also a re- 
markable lake in this neighbourhood, somewhat re- 
sembling the Lake Poorumbeet, called Killambeet ; 
beet beins; the aboriginal word for lake : but we had re- 
luctantly to leave these interesting objects for future 
explorers, and to resume our route to the westward. 

For the next twelve miles our course lay through a 
continuation of the same beautiful country — plains of 
great extent belted with tall trees, copses, and occa- 
sionally small tracks of what is called in New South 
Wales open forest. On several of these plains, the 
grass had very recently been burnt, and the few re- 
maining trees which had occasionally caught fire, and 
been laid prostrate by the all- desolating conflagration, 
were still burning. We galloped across them with- 
out looking for any particular track ; keeping Mount 
Shadwell, the next volcanic cone to the westward, 
which occasionally loomed through the forest, right 
a-head. 

There is something peculiarly dreary in the aspect 
of these blackened plains, immediately after an exten- 
sive conflagration of this kind. The richer the land 
is, the worse it looks on such occasions ; for as the long 
thick grass, which the summer sun has previously de- 
prived of its juices and fitted for the flames, presents 
a continuous surface to the fire, every green thing is 
burnt completely off the face of the earth for miles and 
miles around. But the change that takes place in such 
localities, almost immediately after the first fall of rain 
that succeeds one of these extensive conflagrations, is truly 
remarkable. The whole face of the earth, so recently 
the very picture of extreme desolation, is then all at 
once covered with a thick carpet of the richest green. 
Every pool is again filled with water, and every brook 
begins to flow ; and the flocks and herds, that were fa- 
mishing before, participate with their lord and master, 
man, in the general jubilee of creation. The climate 
of Australia appears to be remarkably similar to that 
of ancient Judea in this respect, and the transitions 
from drought and desolation, to universal verdure and 



168 



PHILLIPSLANB. 



abundance, seem to have been equally rapid and re* 
freshing in that Holy Land. It is unquestionably one 
of these remarkable transitions that the Shepherd King 
describes so beautifully in the latter half of the 65th 
Psalm ; which, as a peculiarly vivid picture of Austra- 
lian, as well as of Jewish scenery, I beg to present to 
the reader in an Australian dress. The scene in the 
following passage commences with a beautiful allusion 
to the awful thunder and lightning that usually ushers 
in the rain in these climates after a long period of 
drought. . > , 

rmx emLjnsiti m aiiw £QtiUq beaoAomo vds no -gait 
Remotest tribes are thrilTd with fear, 
When in the heavens thy signs appear ; 
Anon Thou utterest thy dread voice, 
And east and west alike rejoice. 
Thou visit'st with refreshing rain 
The earth, enriching it amain ; 
Abundantly thy streamlets flow, 
Preparing corn for man to grow. 

731 * Thus ' § racious God > th y bounteous hand 

Softens, revives, andlieals the land; 
37^11 Il$gd with mild showers of blissful rain, 

Makes all her valleys bloom again, 
dry Thou blessest, Lord, the earth's fair spring, 
Lsunr When every tree is blossoming : 
. r.. Th' advancing year thy bounties crown, 

And all thy clouds drop fatness down. 

Even where the flocks half-famish'd stray, 
9TCJJ] To distant pastures far away, 

The fertilizing shower descends 

To cheer the waste and dreary lands. 

Then are the little hills made glad ; 

With bleating flocks the plains are clad; 

The vales afford their rich supply ; 

And all creation shouts for joy.* 

Within three days after the period of our crossing 
these burnt and blackened plains of the western district 



* From Specimens of an Improved Metrical Translation of the 
Psalms of David, intended for the use of the Presbyterian Church 
in Australia and New Zealand. By John Dunmore Lang, D.D. 
Senior Minister of the Presbyterian Church in New South 
Wales. Adam Waldie, Philadelphia, U.S.— 1 840. ^W 1 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 169 

of Phillipsland, the rains descended upon them in 
copious showers, and all this scene of beauty, and 
abundance, and joy, was forthwith realized. 

I was at first at a loss to account for the want of 
trees on these fertile plains. In some parts of them 
there are occasionally three or four to the acre ; but in 
others there are not more, perhaps, than one or two — 
the beautiful lightAvood- — on twenty, or even fifty acres. 
But the scene which the burnt portions of the plains 
exhibited served to explain this phenomenon ; for in 
some cases a solitary Iightwood tree would be seen 
standing on the blackened plains, with its branches and 
verdure unaffected by the desolating conflagration that 
had so recently been burning up every green thing 
for miles around it ; but in others the solitary tree — the 
last rose of summer- — had also been caught at last by 
the flames, and was lying prostrate on the ground, a 
blackened burning trunk, and occasionally reduced to 
ashes. There was, therefore, no difficulty in account- 
ing for the peculiarly naked appearance of not a few 
of the plains. But when these fertile plains shall have 
been extensively occupied by man — the great trans- 
former of the face of nature — his flocks and herds will 
be able to keep down their rank herbage, the annual 
conflagrations to which they are now subject will either 
be checked or regulated, and their surface will again 
be covered with trees to the utmost extent required 
either for ornament or for use. 

It was quite dark when we reached the base of 
Mount Shadweil, and alighted at the comfortable cot- 
tage of James Webster, Esq., J. P. — another Scotch- 
man in the bush — after a ride from Lake Poorumbeet 
of twenty-seven miles. 

Captain Webster had originally been a shipmaster 
trading to Van Dieman's Land, where he married a 
daughter of one of the Episcopal chaplains of the 
island — the late Rev. Mr. Youll of Launceston (original- 
ly one of the missionaries sent out by the London Mis- 
sionary Society to Tahiti towards the close of last 
century) — and determined to settle in that colony. 



170 



PHILLIPSL AND . 



But " having taken an observation," as nautical men 
are in the habit of doing when they wish to ascertain 
their position, and found that there was comparatively 
but little encouragement for " making the land" of that 
island, he embarked, with his family and stock, for 
Port Phillip, and took out his squatting license for the 
vicinity of Mount Shadwell. 

Captain Webster's cottage was of brick, a more 
substantial material than is usually employed for the 
erection of habitations for squatters in the bush ; it 
was proportionally comfortable within. He had se- 
lected the site for it on a rising ground overlooking a 
lagoon which usually presented a fine sheet of water. 
Unfortunately, however, during the hot months of 
December and January, of the summer of 1845 and 
1846, the lagoon had dried up, and I was strongly of 
opinion that the neighbourhood could not be peculiarly 
salubrious at the time, from the marshy exhalations 
that were then rising from its dry bed under the hot 
rays of an Australian sun. 

The country around Mount Shadwell is uncommonly 
rich — too much so, indeed, for sheep, if I could judge 
from the gouty condition of one of Captain Webster's 
flocks, which I observed his men examining in a fold 
adjoining his residence ; but it must afford excellent 
pasture for cattle, and the prospect which it holds 
forth to the agriculturist, whenever the plough shall 
have reached this comparatively remote locality, will 
be particularly encouraging. At the Squatting Stations 
generally there is as much cultivation as is requisite 
for the supply of the establishment with grain, roots, 
&c. ; but situated as most of them are at a great dis- 
tance from any market for farming produce, there is 
seldom any grain grown at them for sale. Indeed, it 
would be a sort of contravention of the implied terms 
of the paction with Government for the occupant of a 
Squatting Station — a mere yearly tenant-at-wilL — to 
cultivate farm-produce for sale on the waste land occu- 
pied professedly for the depasturing of sheep and cattle. 
But these fertile plains must all unquestionably be 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 171 

occupied, ere long, by an industrious agricultural 
population ; for the difficulty of transporting farm-pro- 
duce over even a hundred miles of a dead level, so as 
to remunerate the grower for the cost of production 
and the expense of transport, is not one which the 
science and perseverance of the present age are unlikely 
to overcome. 

It is doubtless the duty of a minister of religion to 
remember his calling when travelling in the bush, and 
to be instant in season and out of season as an ambas- 
sador from a Heavenly King to immortal men. But it 
is much more agreeable to one's natural feelings to be 
requested, in such circumstances, to perform the ser- 
vices of religion than to be obliged to obtrude them, per- 
haps, upon unwilling recipients. I was much gratified, 
therefore, to find that at this distant station in the 
wilderness there was a " ninth hour, or the hour of 
prayer." Before resuming our journey I had to dis- 
pense the ordinance of baptism to one of the children 
of our worthy host. 

For miles around Mount Shadweil, igneous rocks 
that have been ejected from its crater are everywhere 
seen protruding from the surface of the ground ; and 
the chocolate colour of the soil around the base of the 
mountain, so strongly contrasting with the rich black 
mould of the plains, sufficiently indicates its volcanic 
origin. The summit of Mount Shadweil is 667 feet 
above the level of the plains. We ascended it on 
horseback, and enjoyed an extensive and interesting 
view of the surrounding country — studded with vol- 
canic cones and glittering with lakes. We could ob- 
serve, however, no traces of a crater. The mountain 
is evidently a great ruin ; and it is quite obvious that 
some external force, other than the power of gravita- 
tion or the mere lapse of time, has been employed in 
effecting its disintegration. There i3 a ledge of igneous 
rocks on the northern face of the summit that may 
have been part of the rim of the original crater, but 
the southern side of the mountain has been apparently 
torn away, and the debris have been employed in 



172 PHILLIFSLAND. 

gradually raising the level of the ground in that direc- 
tion to a considerable distance from the mountain, so 
as to present a gentle acclivity to its summit. The 
surrounding country exhibits no evidence of any such 
agency having been employed in effecting this ruin as 
that of an earthquake, and it struck me very forcibly 
that it is to be ascribed entirely to the action of water. 
In short, it appears to me that these volcanoes have 
either been originally of submarine origin, or have been 
submerged since their original formation under the 
billows of the sea. 

" Mounts Elephant and Nanime," observes Mr. Com- 
missioner Tyers of Gippsland, formerly one of the 
Government Surveyors of the Colony, "bear every 
appearance of their having been volcanoes : the form 
of both is that of a horse-shoe, open to the westward — 
their interior sides sloping down almost to a level with 
their exterior bases. Their sides, particularly those of 
the Nanime, are covered with a vast quantity of heavy 
scoriae, somewhat resembling the refuse of smelted 
iron."* 

Mount Leura is also open to the westward, and it 
is in that direction that the principal part of its debris 
has been carried ; but Mount Shadwell has broken down 
towards the south. It does not appear, therefore, that 
there is any uniform rale observable in regard to the 
direction in which the cause of disintegration has acted. 

Of the extinct volcanoes of this region, the crater of 
Mount Eeles, near Portland Bay, is the most perfect. 
It has a pool or small lake of fresh water at the bottom 
of it, which is much frequented by ducks and other 
wild fowl, and the lava current which it has poured 
forth can be traced for ten miles. Mount Eeles is 
fifty miles due west of Mount Shadwell. Mount House, 
which has an elevation of 526 feet, is about thirty 
miles distant, to the northward of west ; and Mount 



* Report of an Expedition to ascertain the 141st degree of 
East Longitude, — Colonial Government Papers, ySL 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 



173 



Napier, which has a well-defined crater, is distant 
about forty-five miles, not quite so much to the north- 
ward of west. But this volcanic region extends much 
farther westward than any of these mountains, which 
are all three within a few miles of the 142d degree of 
east longitude ; for Mount Gambier — within the present 
limits of South Australia — is also a volcanic peak, and 
there is a whole series of natural cauldrons, similar to 
those I have mentioned near Mount Leura, within the 
South Australian territory. There is reason to believe, 
therefore, that this extensive volcanic region comprises 
a total area of nearly three hundred miles from east to 
west, with an average breadth of from one hundred to 
a hundred and fifty miles from south to north. 

When Count Strzelecki, therefore, observes that 
" New South Wales exhibits few records of eruptive 
rocks, and preserves all its crystalline siliceous rocks 
in addition to the siliceous sedimentary ones which, in 
the course of ages, have accumulated upon its surface." 
and that, consequently, "New South Wales, by the nature 
of its soils, seems destined apparently to become a pas- 
toral— Van Dieman's Land, an agricultural country," * 
he must be understood as speaking exclusively of that 
portion of New South Wales Proper which lies within 
1.50 miles of the Pacific Ocean. That was the utmost 
extent of Count Strzelecki's travels in Australia, as 
acknowledged by himself in his able and interesting 
work. The volcanic region of Phillipsland, situated 
towards the Great Southern Ocean and farther from 
the Pacific, he never either traversed or saw. 

At the same time, I beg to express my entire accord- 
ance in the following sentiments of that distinguished 
traveller, and to bespeak the extension of the Geologi- 
cal Survey he recommended for New South Wales and 
Van Dieman's Land to Phillipsland, which, I would 
add, is evidently destined to be both a pastoral and m 



* Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Dieman's 
Land, &c. By P. E. De Strzelecki. London, 1845. P. 157 



174 PIIILLIPSLAXD. 

agricultural country — more of a pastoral country than 
New South Wales, and more of an agricultural country 
than Van Dieman's Land. 

" New South Wales, by the nature of its soil, seems 
destined apparently to become a pastoral — Van Die- 
man's Land, an agricultural country." 

" To hasten the development of that destiny, to pave 
the way, not only for a successful investigation of other 
branches of physical science, but to lead directly to 
the improvement of agriculture, and the success of 
commercial projects in various departments, a regular 
geological survey of the two colonies cannot be too 
strongly recommended ; and such a survey as the 
science of the present day requires can only be accom- 
plished by the aid of Government, and by the pursuit 
of the same liberal system which has already organized 
the Geological Ordnance Survey in the United King- 
dom.»* 

Our route from Mount Shad well to the point at 
which I had proposed to reach the road from Melbourne 
to Portland, the far ivest of Phillipsland, was due north. 
There is a weekly mail to and fro between Melbourne 
and Portland — the distance being 250 miles ; and Mr. 
Green, the mail-contractor (who is also the contractor 
for the mail from Melbourne to Yass, 400 miles of the 
road to Sydney,) having learned that I was going to 
Portland, to see the country, previous to my intended 
voyage to England, very kindly offered me a seat by 
the mail, to and fro, free of cost. Being desirous, how- 
ever, of ascertaining the general character and capa- 
bilities of the country for about a hundred miles to the 
westward of Geelong, which would render it necessary 
for me to pursue a course about forty or fifty miles 
farther south than the one pursued by the Portland 
mail, I had arranged to meet the mail at the close of 
the fourth day's ride from Geelong ; and my friend, 
Dr. Thomson, had not only provided me with a horse 



* Strzelecki, ubi supra. 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 



175 



of his own for this journey, but accompanied me him- 
self the whole way as my fellow-traveller and guide. 
I had previously requested him, by letter from Sydney, 
to hire me a horse and a guide ; and this was the very 
handsome manner in which he had executed my 
commission. 

For some distance from Mount Shadwell the country 
continued of much the same character as before. It 
then assumed a more exclusively pastoral character ; 
and at the distance of fifteen miles from our starting 
point, we reached a Squatting Station belonging to 
Messrs. Denniston of Glasgow, on a creek or tributary 
stream that falls into the Hopkins. The day was ex- 
ceedingly hot, and the shade of a bark hut, during the 
short period of our stay at this station, was peculiarly 
agreeable, especially when a " pot of tea" — the univer- 
sal and the universally-acceptable beverage of the bush 
in Australia — was made for us by the Scotch Highland 
overseer, who happened to be at home. The overseer 
was a Cameron — a clan which, I afterwards found, is 
likely to become as numerous in Phillipsland as ever 
it has been in the Highlands of Scotland. I am sorry 
to add, however, that too many of the Roman Catholic 
portion of this clan have already found their way to 
the colony. A patriarch of this class, who has a sheep 
station on the Glenelg River, where he has already 
made a handsome independency, was recently at Port- 
land when the Romish priest at Geelong was there 
collecting for the erection of a Romish church in that 
locality. The priest performed mass, of course, during 
his stay, for the edification of the faithful in the district ; 
and Mr. Cameron observed, at the conclusion of the 
farce,* that as it was twenty years since he had heard 



* Having witnessed the celebration of mass, in all its honour 
and glory, in the Cathedrals of Notre Dame at Paris, of Stras-, 
bourg and of Cologne, as well as at Rio Janeiro and Pernam- 
buco, in the Brazils, 1 cannot allow myself to speak of it, as a 
professedly religious service, in a more courteous or respectful 
style than I have done. It is a piece of egregious pantomime, of 



176 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



mass before, he would give the priest a pound a year 
for every year he had missed it. I question whether 
a Presbyterian Cameron would have given as much 
in similar circumstances for a better object. But " the 
children of this world are" not only " wiser in their 
generation than the children of light;" they are not 
unfrequently more generous also. 

Mr. Cameron, the overseer at Messrs. Denniston's 
statiou, told us he likes the country well. He had 
been accustomed to shepherding and the management 
of sheep from his youth ; and to be able to ride about 
on horseback, to visit the different flocks belonging to 
his employers, and to see that everything at the station 
is going on well — saving every farthing, perhaps, of 
his earnings all the while, and investing it in stock to 



absurd and blasphemous buffoonery ; an outrage upon the com- 
mon sense of mankind ; a notorious libel upon the Christian 
religion. And is this magnificent country (I often asked myself 
when traversing Phillipsland, the extreme south, and Cooksland, 
the extreme north, of the inhabited portion of Eastern Australia) 
to be quietly handed over to a few designing people who, while 
we Protestants are slumbering at our post, will inundate it 
assuredly, as they have indeed been doing for some time past, 
with hordes of ignorant, bigotted, and intolerant Roman Catholics 
from the south and west of Ireland, that they may be able to 
cover it all over with mass-houses by and bye, to subject the 
human mind in Australia to the most degrading species of slavery, 
and to reduce the fairest provinces of the Southern Hemisphere 
under the detested domination of the Man of Sin ? It was this 
consideration, I confess — combined with the hope of being enabled 
to confer extensive benefit on thousands of the humbler classes 
of my own Protestant fellow-countrymen at home, by directing 
them to a really encouraging field of emigration — that spurred 
my horse over hill and valley, mountain and plain in Australia, 
and that has induced me to devote my leisure hours during the 
last five months to the preparation of this and another similar 
volume for the press. I write this on the 30th of November, the 
last day of the fifth month of the longest and stormiest passage I 
have ever made to England round Cape Horn. We are at this 
moment hove-to, that is, unable to show canvass, and lying like a 
mere log upon the water, under a fierce gale of adverse wind 
from the eastward, at the mouth of the British channel, and my 
head still aches after the tremendous rolling and pitching of a 
sleepless night. 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 



177 



commence for himself by and bye — is not only a step 
to a young active Highlander, but a certain step to 
fortune. He was a son of Mr. Cameron of Ferinish — 
he told us, moreover — and was well known to his 
parish minister, the Eev. Dr. John M 4 Leod of Morven. 
He accompanied us a mile or two on horseback when 
we resumed our journey. 

About three or four miles from Messrs. Denniston's 
Station, we halted for a short time at that of Messrs. 
Gibb and Anderson, two respectable Scotchmen, who 
have squatted near a small salt lagoon, adjoining the 
same creek or tributary wdiich we had crossed at Mr. 
Cameron's. 

Many of the Squatting Stations of Phillipsland are 
held in this Joint Stock partnership way. Two young 
men find perhaps, on their arrival in the colony, that 
the amount of capital they can each invest in stock is 
insufficient to bear the expenses of a separate establish- 
ment, and they therefore unite their capital, and make a 
Joint Stock concern. In this way their individual ex- 
penses are diminished one half to each of them, while 
a more effectual superintendence is secured for both ; 
for the one can always be present on the station while 
the other is necessarily absent, disposing of produce, 
purchasing supplies, or transacting other business for 
the station. It often happens also, that even when 
these partnerships are well assorted, one of the partners 
is much better fitted for the one class of duties than 
the other, so that each contributes in the most effectual 
manner his quota of service or exertion for the common 
benefit of both. And when the concern becomes suffi- 
ciently extensive to bear division, and when each is able 
perhaps^to keep an overseer of his own, the stock and 
other property are divided accordingly — and then when 
Lot goes to the right hand, Abraham goes to the left. 
From a List of the payers of Squatting Licenses in Phil- 
lipsland, which the reader will find at the close of this 
volume, he will see how very large a proportion of the 
Squatting Stations of that country have hitherto been 
held on this Joint Stock principle. It is true the part- 

M 



178 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



nerships are not always well assorted; the partners, it 
may be, do not draw well together ; they are not of eon- 
genial dispositions, and a disruption takes place, as oc- 
casionally happens elsewhere in other partnerships of 
a more extensive character and a more intimate con- 
nexion : but these are the exceptions, self-interest and 
common sense preventing them from becoming the 
general rule. 

Mr. Anderson w r as absent somewhere on the business 
of the establishment, but his partner, Mr. Gibb, who 
was at home, received us with the open-handed hospi- 
tality of an Australian Squatter ; who, the reader will 
doubtless have discovered by this time, is a very differ- 
ent personage from the American variety of the same 
extensive genus. The latter, "I guess/' has no sheep, 
and precisely the same number of cattle ; and he merely 
slings his axe over his shoulder, and entering the path- 
less forest, clears a few acres of ground, builds a log 
cabin, and plants or sows whatever is suited to the soil 
and climate, and forthwith sells his " betterments," as 
lie calls them, with the right of preemption over his 
Squatting Station, w T hich the Government of his coun- 
try judiciously secures to him, to the first emigrant 
from the u old country," who happens to take a fancy 
to -- his lot;" repeating the same process again and 
again. The Australian Squatter, on the contrary, is a 
person who u sits down " on the waste land of Aus- 
tralia, under a Squatting License from the Government, 
for which he pays at least £10 a year, and who, 
erecting an extempore habitation, covered with thatch 
or with bark, depastures his rapidly increasing flocks 
and herds over the grassy hills and valleys around 
him. The American Squatter commences avowedly 
as a poor man, and in all likelihood he never rises 
much above that humble level all his days. But the 
Australian Squatter is perhaps a man of birth and 
education, and in all likelihood of moderate capital 
from the first. But even when he commences on as 
humble a scale as the American backwoodsman — as 
a hired shepherd, perhaps, investing his humble earn- 



THE "WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 179 



ings in stock of his own, till he can a go upon his own 
hands," — he will probably be found, in a period of time 
comparatively short, the proprietor of an amount of 
stock, (in sheep, cattle, and horses, for we have no 
she-asses nor camels in Australia,) which the patriarch 
of the land of ITz, even in his best days, would have 
beheld with perfect astonishment. 

Mr. Gibb had originally arrived as an emigrant in 
Van Dienian's Land, from the county of Perth in Scot- 
land, with an unblemished character, steady industrious 
habits and a thorough knowledge of farming pursuits. 
He was engaged on his arrival, as an overseer or farm 
superintendent, by Dr. Officer, a medical gentleman, 
also from Scotland, holding a Government appointment 
in that colony ; who, like many others of the respect- 
able colonists of Yan Dienian's Land, embarked pretty 
extensively in the Port Phillip speculation, employing 
Mr. Gibb as his agent in that country. But when 
times got bad, when stock of every description had 
fallen to the lowest possible price, when insolvency and 
ruin were general throughout the country, and when 
sensible people, like Mr. Richard Howitt, were leaving 
it as fast as possible, to publish their lugubrious vo- 
lumes of " First Impressions" in England — them, when 
every thing was at the worst, Dr. Officer, getting 
alarmed, ordered his entire stock at Port Phillip to be 
sold off. It was the worst possible time to sell, as Dr. 
Officer doubtless found ; but for that very reason it w T as 
the very best time to buy — and Mr. Gibb and his part- 
ner, Mr. Anderson, having become the purchasers, they 
are already enabled, from the wonderful change for the 
better which has since been experienced in the state and 
prospects of the country, to take their place, most de- 
servedly, among the most prosperous of the Squatters 
of Australia. 

Mr. Gibb had been recently married, but his wife 
was then absent in Melbourne. He had just finished 
the erection of a neat cottage for his family. It was 
one of the most substantial I had seen at a Squat- 
ting Station ; being built of stone, and having glass 



180 



PHILLIFSL AND . 



windows, and deal floors. It was also regularly plas- 
tered with lime, like a house in a town, instead of being 
merely daubed with mud, and having a ceiling of can- 
vass, like the better sort of habitations at such Stations ; 
for at most of them glass windows and deal floors, 
plastered walls, and any other ceiling than the inner 
sides of the broad sheets of bark that serve for the 
roof, are never thought of. Doubtless these indispen- 
sable requisites of civilization, as they would be consi- 
dered elsewhere, can be much more easily dispensed with 
in so fine a climate as that of Australia than they could 
in England, and people who are merely yearly tenants 
at will have some excuse for not erecting buildings of 
a permanent character at their Squatting Stations ; but 
a very moderate degree of industry, and such a feeling 
of self-respect as is both becoming and proper on the 
part of those who have themselves experienced not 
merely the comforts but the refinements of civilization, 
would accomplish much more at the Squatting Stations 
generally, than they usually exhibit. There is a great 
improvement, however, taking place in this respect, 
and it is certainly to be hailed as a token for good ; for 
it cannot but be prejudicial in the highest degree to the 
best interests of any country, to have a large and in- 
fluential class of its inhabitants gradually descending 
into a state of semi-barbarism. I have usually found, 
indeed, that such improvements are generally traceable 
to the circumstance of the Squatter's having got mar- 
ried ; for the revolution which the appearance of a wife 
usually makes in the bush, is as great, as sudden, and as 
salutary, as that of the Three Days itself. 

Mr. Gibb was thoroughly acquainted with the cha- 
racter and capabilities of the country we had been tra- 
versing, as also w T ith those of the region still farther to 
the westward, as far indeed as the present boundary of 
the colony; and as a practical farmer of sound judg- 
ment and great experience, I could place the utmost 
confidence in his opinion. He stated it therefore as his 
belief and conviction that, from Geelong to the Glenelg 
river, and for fifty miles beyond it, or to the present 



THE WESTERN PLAINS AND THE LAKES. 181 

boundary of the colony — an extent of 200 miles in 
length— there is a tract of land of the first quality for 
agricultural purposes, of an average breadth of twenty- 
five miles ; that is 5000 square miles, or 3,200,000 
acres altogether. In some places the breadth of this 
tract is not so great as twenty-five miles, but in others, 
as in the Port Fairy District, and on the Glenelg, it is 
much greater. In corroboration of the latter part of 
this statement, Mr. John M'Pherson, whom I have al- 
ready referred to, as a successful colonist and a highly 
experienced practical farmer, stated that on the Glenelg 
and the Wannon rivers, where he has a station himself, 
there is a tract of land of fifty miles square, the finest 
whether for pasture or for agriculture he had ever seen ; 
he did not believe that a single acre of bad land could 
be found in it. 

And so lightly timbered is this magnificent tract of 
country, that Mr. G-ibb gave it as his opinion, that two 
men with a team of six bullocks could put in fifty acres 
of wheat the first year, and that one man and a pair of 
horses could do the same afterwards ; the land being 
much more easily ploughed when it has been once 
turned up. 

Mr. Gibb accompanied us on horseback for several 
miles to the limits of his station, the country being still 
of the same character as before, but perhaps better 
adapted for pasturage than for cultivation. Towards 
the close of our journey, we passed on our right Lake 
Bolac, a lake of about three miles in length, and of 
nearly the same breadth. It is quite fresh, except at 
a particular point where it is salt. It is supplied 
chiefly by a creek or small stream from the Pyrenees, 
called the Fiery Creek, of which, I believe, the native 
name is Pooringh-y-jalla. The Lake was pretty full at 
the time we passed it ; but it had been dry some time 
before. 

We reached the termination of our journey, at 
twenty-six miles from Mount Shad well, or 123 from 
Geelong, and halted for the night at the comfortable 
cottage of Mr. Paterson, another respectable Scotch 



182 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



Squatter from Van Dieman's Land. Mr. Paterson is 
married, and has his family residing with him in the 
bush : his children are old enough to have a governess. 
His cottage is very picturesquely situated between two 
lakes, of which the one is three miles in circumference, 
the other being considerably smaller; but the water 
of both is salt, and I understood that the dry bed of 
one of them affords a plentiful supply of that indispen- 
sable commodity every summer to all who choose to 
carry it away. There was rather too much of it in- 
deed, I thought, in the neighbourhood ; for the water 
used in Mr. Paterson's family was slightly brackish. 
It was not observable, I was told, to those who had been 
in the habit of using it, but I confess I should not 
have liked to be obliged to acquire such a habit. 

In the course of the evening, I again dispensed the 
ordinance of baptism to the child of one of Mr. Pater- 
son's shepherds, a Scotch Highlander, who had married 
an Irish Roman Catholic, but whom I found a reput- 
able and intelligent man. The priest had offered to 
baptize the child, but the Highlander would not allow 
him. These mixed marriages, as the Roman Catholics 
call them, are a prodigious evil ; but what are men 
like the Scotch Highlander to do, when so very large 
a proportion of the emigrants imported at the public 
expense consists of Irish Roman Catholics ? In such 
circumstances, I could not find fault with the man for 
being " unequally yoked." 

The Mail from Melbourne passed Mr. Paterson's 
door at two o'clock next morning, and I accordingly 
took my reserved seat for Portland, bidding adieu to 
my good friend, Dr. Thomson. 



CHAPTER VI. 



PORTLAND BAT AND THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 

The town of Portland, which is situated on the west- 
ern side of Portland Bay, in latitude 38° 23' South, 
and in 141° 25' East longitude, is only about forty 
miles to the eastward of the present western boundary 
of the Province, following the line of the coast. It is 
therefore the Ultima ThuU of Phillipsland, being about 
840 miles from Sydney by the overland mail route. 

Portland Bay, which, according to Mr. Commis- 
sioner Tyers, " is 26 miles from east to west, and 10 
from north to south," is, in my opinion, at least equal, 
as a road-stead for shipping, to Table Bay at the Cape 
of Good Hope; having excellent holding ground in from 
four to six fathoms, with a bottom of stiff blue clay, 
towards the western shore, where the anchorage is 
completely sheltered from the south-westerly winds, 
which are decidedly the worst on the southern coast. 
It is open, however, to the south-east, from which di- 
rection the wind prevails during the summer months; 
and Mr. Tyers adds, that ,; during a south-westerly 
gale ? a swell sets in, causing a heavy surf on the beach." 
It is by no means, however, so subject to violent gales 
as Table Bay at the Cape of Good Hope. 

The situation of Portland is naturally one of the 
finest for a commercial town that I have seen on the 
coast ; being on a smaller curve in the general curva- 
ture of the Bay, jn-esenting a sufficient extent of level 
ground behind for a large town, with a fine bold ter- 
race towards the sea. Now, common sense would 
surely have dictated, that in such a situation, the prin- 
cipal street should have formed a semicircle along the 



184 



PHILLIPSL^XD. 



beach, having cross streets diverging from it like the 
spokes of a wheel. But Common Sense is unfortu- 
nately very rarely consulted about the formation of 
colonial towns, and therefore a surveyor's parallelo- 
gram, adapted for the ground-plan of a town where 
there is no remarkable feature in the natural scenery 
to serve as a general point of departure for the entire 
locality, had to be wrought out, as far as practicable, 
in the town of Portland ; the streets forming tangents 
to the curve of which the otherwise striking and beau- 
tiful effect is thus neutralized and lost. The only pub- 
lic buildings in the town are the Court House and the 
Gaol — the former a fine building, constructed of a 
light greyish granite ; but its effect, which would other- 
wise have been very striking, is completely lost, from 
wmat geologists would call its uncomformable position. 

The first town-allotments in Portland were sold on 
the 15th October 1840, the year in which the land- 
mania had reached its utmost height ; and as the Go- 
vernment thought proper to dispose of forty allotments 
only on that occasion, although the number of intend- 
ing purchasers was very considerable, competition was 
stimulated to such an extent by this adroit manoeuvre 
of a paternal Government, that the allotments averaged 
the enormous amount of £275, 13s. 3d. each, and rea- 
lized the sum total of £ 11,026, 10s. Now, I have no 
hesitation in asserting, that to tax the industry and en- 
terprise of a small community of respectable free emi- 
grants, who were nobly extending the bounds of civi- 
lization, and of the British Empire, by pitching their 
tents in so remote a locality, to transform a desert 
shore into a thriving town — to tax such a community 
to so unheard-of an amount for the few paltry half acres 
on which they were to erect their dwelling houses and 
warehouses, their shops and stores — was a policy on 
the part of the Government equally heartless and sui- 
cidal, and that could only lead to the general ruin that 
ensued, Since that period, however — such has been the 
indomitable character of the people — nearly £30,000 
additional has been invested in buildings in the town of 



PORTLAND BAY AND THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 185 



Portland ; and I was not less surprised than gratified 
at the highly creditable appearance of the place, and 
at the evidence it afforded of the spirit and energy of 
the inhabitants. 

The District of Normanby, in which the towns of 
Portland and Belfast are included, contains a popula- 
tion of 5740 souls.* It comprises the fine country on 
either side of the Grampians, including the splendid 
tract of fifty miles square on the Wannon and Glen- 
elg rivers. Of this country Portland is the natural 
outlet to seaward, and will doubtless continue to be so, 
and will consequently become a place of great commer- 
cial importance, should the establishment of a railway 
across the plains to the westward from Geelong — an 
event which the physical character of the country ren- 
ders exceedingly probable — not divert a considerable 
portion of the trade of the interior into that channel. 
Even in this case, however, the town of Portland is as 
likely to gain as much in one way from the general 
improvement of the country, as it would lose in an- 
other. 

The trade of Portland is already considerable, seve- 
ral vessels having loaded there direct for England ; 
and there are two respectable weekly journals in the 
place, designated respectively " The Portland Adver- 
tiser," and " The Portland Guardian." 

There are few towns in any country that combine 
so many natural advantages as Portland. The situa- 
tion is not only picturesque and commanding, but in 
the highest degree salubrious. The ground in the im- 
mediate neighbourhood is a black mould of superior 
quality, admirably adapted for gardens and suburban 
allotments ; and the whole of this coast, from its vici- 
nity to the Great Southern Ocean, enjoys an abund- 
ance, if not a superabundance, of rain. The surround- 
ing forests supply excellent timber for various purpo- 
ses ; granite, and other descriptions of stone for build- 



* The population of Portland is 510. 



186 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



ing, are procurable within a moderate distance ; the 
cliffs on the coast consist of a fossiliferous limestone, 
and there is a stream of fresh water which enters the 
sea close to the town, forming a beautiful lagoon of 
about a mile in circumference, before it discharges it- 
self into the bay. That lagoon is doubtless within the 
influence of the tides, but it would be very easy to 
dam it up, to afford the town an abundant supply of 
fresh water in its immediate neighbourhood. It struck 
me, however, that it was destined to serve a different 
purpose in the progress of improvement in this inter- 
esting and important locality ; for, as the entrance is 
completely sheltered from the westerly and south- 
westerly winds of this coast, it would evidently be 
quite practicable, and would in all likelihood cost but 
a comparatively small sum to transform it into a dock, 
or commodious harbour for shipping of moderate ton- 
nage, by excavating both the lagoon and the tideway 
to a sufficient depth, and erecting strong walls, and per- 
haps sea-gates at the entrance. The present depth of 
the lagoon is only about three feet, but the deposits of 
many ages from the stream doubtless constitute its bed 
to a considerably greater depth. The Police Magis- 
trate, E. Blair, Esq. J.P., has a cottage most pictu- 
resquely situated on a rising ground to the westward 
of this lagoon, overlooking the town and the bay, and 
every advantage which a refined taste could suggest 
has been taken by Mr. Blair of the natural beauties 
of the situation. 

As I happened to be the first of the Representatives 
of Port Phillip who had ever visited Portland, and as 
I had very shortly before been unexpectedly successful 
in carrying a measure which was expected to issue in 
the separation of the Province from New South Wales, 
and in its erection into a separate and independent co- 
lony, I experienced a very cordial reception from the 
principal inhabitants ; who, although I was not per- 
sonally known to any of them before, invited me to a 
supper during the short period of my stay, at which 
Stephen Plenty, Esq. J.P., the patriarch of the place, 



PORTLAND BAY AND THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 187 



presided. Knowing that I was shortly to proceed to 
England, they were naturally desirous that I should 
do every thing in my power to make known the cha- 
racter and capabilities of the Western District gene- 
rally at home, that a numerous, industrious, and vir- 
tuous population from the mother-country might, as 
speedily as possible, be directed to their shores. It 
was on that occasion that William Learmonth, Esq. 
J. P., a respectable Squatter from the Port Fairy Dis- 
trict, who happened to be in Portland at the time, de- 
clared that in order to secure to the Province the be- 
nefits likely to accrue from the introduction of such a 
population into its extensive territory, he would will- 
ingly surrender the half of his " run." 

As an instance of the capabilities of the district, Mr. 
Cameron, a respectable Scotch Highlander, who keeps 
the principal hotel at Portland, informed me that his 
namesake, the old patriarch on the Glenelg, had, four 
years before, given a nephew of his own, another High- 
land adventurer of the same name, from Badenoch in 
Scotland, a thousand sheep, on credit, to commence 
with on his own account, the price of the sheep being 
twenty-four shillings a-head. This was a very high 
price compared with the price to which sheep after- 
wards fell in the colony, and the times that succeeded 
were the worst the country had ever experienced. But 
by patient industry and economy, Mr. Cameron, junr, 
managed, even in these times, to pay the interest of 
the £1200 which his flock had cost, and to maintain 
himself besides on their produce, without getting further 
into debt. He had paid off the whole of his debt at the 
period of my visit ; his sheep had then increased to 
7000 head, of all ages, and were worth £4000, and 
his wool alone would next year, that is in the season 
of 1846 and 1847, bring him not less than £1200. 
Mr. Cameron, the hotel-keeper, regretted that, instead 
of taking up an inn, he had not rather taken a flock of 
sheep himself, which he could have got as easily about 
the same time. And yet, I understood, he was doing 
exceedingly well in his vocation. At all events, he 



J 88 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



has a most respectable house, much more so indeed 
than I expected to find in so remote a locality — well- 
frequented and well-conducted. 

At the period of my visit, the Government were 
constructing a wooden jetty at Portland, to facilitate 
the lading and discharging of vessels. It was to ex- 
tend 300 feet out from high-water mark. It consisted 
of three parallel rows of piles extending longitudinally 
into the deep water, and strongly bound together by 
tie beams on the top, having cross-beams, a few inches 
apart, for a roadway, and a rail or parapet on each 
side ; the whole breadth being about sixteen feet. To 
facilitate the transport of goods to and fro, and parti- 
cularly the shipment of wool on this jetty, two strong 
planks were battened down longitudinally on the cross- 
beams on each side at the distance required for a 
carriage-way, leaving a passage clear in the centre for 
persons on foot. And on these wooden railways, for 
such they are, two large trucks with flange-wheels were 
made to traverse with goods to and fro between the 
shore and the vessels alongside ; the moving power for 
each truck being two men, who, I was told, could in 
this way move along with perfect facility not fewer 
than twenty bales of wool, averaging from 250 to 300 
lbs. each, or from 6000 to 8000 lbs. in all. The ma- 
terial of which the rails were constructed was stringy 
bark wood from the neighbouring forests, which, it 
appears, is admirably adapted for the purpose. 

On seeing this jetty, I was perfectly convinced of 
the entire practicability of an object which I had fre- 
quently thought of for months before, but in regard to 
the feasibility of which I was previously not quite 
certain ; viz., that the most effectual means of settling 
the fertile plains to the westward of Geelong with an 
agricultural population, and of affording that popula- 
tion a cheap and expeditious means of transit for goods 
and produce — the great desideratum in all new coun- 
tries — would be to construct a cheap wooden railway 
across their whole extent, from Geelong to the western 
boundary of the province, according as the land should 



PORTLAND BAY AND THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 189 



be progressively settled. I had already ascertained, to 
my own entire satisfaction, that this extensive tract 
was in every respect deserving of the high character 
which it bore, and was admirably adapted for the 
settlement of a numerous agricultural population. I 
had also ascertained that there were no physical diffi- 
culties in the way of constructing such a mode of com- 
munication — such as mountains to be crossed over or 
valleys to be embanked; the country presenting nearly a 
dead level, with the exception of the numerous isolated 
volcanic hills and picturesque lakes, to the right and 
left of the probable route. And I had now ascertained 
that the indigenous timber of the country was perfectly 
suited for the construction of sach a railway ; for the 
greater extent of country to be traversed, and the sub- 
stitution of steam as a motive power for manual labour, 
could not affect the practicability of the object. It was 
with deep interest, therefore, that I witnessed the con- 
struction of the jetty at Portland, as it demonstrated 
the entire practicability of effecting the speedy settle- 
ment of an extensive tract of country, inferior to none 
in the British Empire, with a numerous and agricultural 
population, and of thereby transforming thousands and 
tens of thousands of families and individuals, who 
would otherwise be comparatively useless to themselves 
and a burden upon society at home, into " a bold" 
colonial " yeomanry, their country's pride/' But I 
shall have occasion to revert to this subject at greater 
length in the sequel. 

There is a tract of country around Portland Bay 
which somewhat resembles, in its physical character, a 
considerable portion of the Cape Otway country — con- 
sisting of dense forests of magnificent timber, mountain 
ridges, extensive swamps, and tracts of sterile land 
alternating occasionally with other tracts of a superior 
character, but not likely to be made available for man 
while there is so vast an extent of land of the first 
quality for cultivation naturally clear of timber in the 
back country. This tract extends northward about 
forty miles from Portland, eastward about thirty miles 



190 



PHILLIP SL AND. 



towards Port Fairy, which is forty-five miles distant 
from Portland, and westward to the Glenelg Kiver, or 
the present boundary of South Australia. Of the 
mouth of that river, which disembogues into the Great 
Western Ocean only about tw r o miles to the eastward 
of the present boundary line, as well as of the country 
in its immediate vicinity, Mr. Commissioner Tyers 
thus writes, in his very able Keport already referred 
to : — 

" The mouth of the River Glenelg can never be 
made available as a harbour ; for, independently of the 
heavy breakers on the bar, the accumulation of sand 
is sometimes so great between the eastern and western 
shores of the entrance as completely to separate the 
river from the sea. Besides, the basin, through which 
it flows immediately before its entrance into the sea, 
has a depth of not more than two or three feet water. 

"Beyond the basin, the river appears to be of consider- 
able depth ; but the banks, chiefly limestone cliffs, for 
the most part about 100 or 200 feet high, and steep ; 
the water for several miles brackish, and the land 
indifferent — a mere sand, covered with thick scrub, 
vines, and forest."* 

Sir Thomas Mitchell supposes that as the Glenelg 
river has evidently cut its way between these ridges of 
limestone cliffs that now form its banks in the low r er 
part of its course, where at present there is no current 
in the stream, there must have been a considerable 
depression in the level of the land on this part of the 
coast. It is not improbable, indeed, that while the 
land to the eastward may have been considerably 
elevated above its former level, as compared with that 
of the ocean, there may have been a corresponding 
depression here, as in the case mentioned by Mr. Lyell, 
at the mouths of the Indus. Ac all events, there is 
no practicable outlet to the sea to the westward of Port- 



* Report of an Expedition to ascertain the position of the 
141st degree of East Longitude, &c. By C. J. Tyers, Surveyor. 
Colonial Government Paper, Sydney, 1841. 



PORTLAND BAY AND THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 191 



land. I may add, that the whole of the coast line, 
from Port Fairy to the Glenelg River — about eighty 
miles — is of limestone formation, and that formation 
probably extends for some distance into the interior. 

The Melbourne mail leaves Portland every Tuesday 
morning at nine o'clock. The mail-carriage consists of 
a strong two- wheeled open vehicle, with one horse in 
shafts and the other attached, alongside of him, by 
traces, to an outrigger on the right side. It carries three 
passengers, one of whom sits alongside the driver, and 
the other two behind, with their backs to the horses, 
ready to leap off whenever the vehicle is threatened 
with a capsize. This is the sort of carriage that is 
found the best adapted to resist the numberless violent 
shocks and joltings of a bush-road in Australia, that is 
a road following the first track through the natural 
forest, without any assistance from the hand of man. 
When the weather is dry and the route comparatively 
level, it moves along pleasantly enough, at the rate of 
eight and sometimes even of ten miles an hour. But 
there are often fearful inequalities of surface, equally 
trying to the skill of the driver and the nerves of the 
passengers. For instance, in approaching the dry bed 
of a wintry torrent, where perhaps not a shovelful of 
the soil has been removed from the steep banks on 
either side to render the passage easier for a wheel- 
carriage, an experienced and fearless bush Wliip will 
lash his horses into a rapid pace on approaching the 
descent to give both them and the vehicle a sufficient 
impetus to carry Uiein up to the top of the opposite 
bank. As I was the only member of the Legisla- 
tive Council of New South Wales during the session 
of 1845, who had travelled overland to Port Phillip, I 
gave early notice of an intention to move an address to 
his Excellency the Governor in the early part of that 
session, for the appropriation of £1000 for the repair 
of the worst places of that road from Yass to Mel- 
bourne, a distance of 400 miles. But his Excellency, 
taking the hint, placed the sum upon the estimates, 
which was voted accordingly without the formality of 



192 



PHILLIP SL AND. 



an address. It was probably the recollection of this 
small service that induced my worthy friend, the 
spirited mail contractor, Mr. Green, to frank me, as 
far as I wished to travel by the mail, to and from 
Portland, and to offer to repeat the same kindness if I 
chose to return to Sydney overland ; of which offer, 
however, 1 could not avail myself, as I had predeter- 
mined to return by sea. It was high time, however, 
for something to be done for the improvement of that 
important channel of communication between the north- 
ern and southern portions of the colony; for on inquiring 
in the course of my third journey overland, in 1846, 
about two active and obliging postmen whom I missed 
on the road on that occasion, I found that the one of 
them had been drowned in swimming across a swollen 
creek with the mail, while the other had met with an 
accident that had rendered him lame for life. 

My fellow-passengers by the " Melbourne Royal 
Mail" from Portland were Mr. M'Dowell, a merchant 
in Portland, originally from the north of Ireland, and 
a respectable young woman, who was going up as a 
housekeeper to a family at the Grange, the termination 
of our first day's journey; to whom, of course, we re- 
signed the front seat. 

Although there is a considerable extent of land of 
superior quality immediately around the town of Port- 
land, it is all thickly wooded, and the forest becomes 
denser, while the land deteriorates, farther inland. 
There had been much rain during my stay in Portland ; 
the road was consequently very heavy, and as there 
were several pretty sharp pulls on our way, our progress 
was necessarily slow. We were therefore ready for a 
light refreshment on reaching our first halting place at 
a Bush Inn, kept by a respectable Scotchman of the 
name of Edgar, at the Second River, twenty miles 
from Portland, due north. The number of Scotchmen 
in this occupation in Phillipsland is quite remarkable. 
I confess I never liked to see a Scotch innkeeper in 
New South Wales. The idea of serving out liquor to 
ticket-of-leave men and expiree convicts, and listening 



PORTLAND BAY AND THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 193 



all the while to their abominable conversation, as a 
means of getting a livelihood, had something in it so 
intolerably degrading, that I always felt offended as a 
Scotsman, when I found a fellow-countryman engaged 
in the necessarily demoralizing occupation. But in 
this comparatively free district, I confess I felt rather 
pleased when I found a bush inn, or house of enter- 
tainment for travellers, at any place where, such a house 
was really necessary, kept by a respectable Scotsman. 
The late Dr. Timothy D wight, President of Yale Col- 
lege in America, observes somewhere in his interesting 
Travels in New England and New York, that the high 
toned morality of these countries is traceable, in some 
degree at least, to the care which the Select-men, or 
local magistrates, have uniformly exercised in suffering 
none but men of character and reputation to keep 
houses of public entertainment. For a house of this 
description, kept by a worthless character, like many 
of the low publicans of New South Wales, uniformly 
proves a fruitful source and centre of demoralization, a 
moral pestilence to the neighbourhood. 

The First River,, which is crossed about fourteen 
miles from Portland, is called the Surry, and the Se- 
cond, which is crossed at Edgar's Inn, is merely a tri- 
butary of the Fitzroy ; all the three take their rise in 
what Sir Thomas Mitchell calls the Rifle Range,- — a 
range of mountains which the road to Melbourne 
crosses twice, in a direction somewhat to the westward 
of north, to clear an extensive swamp to the right, be- 
fore it can take its proper course to the eastward. 
There is some good land on the Second River, which 
Mr. Edgar has partly cleared, and, I have no doubt, it 
will one day become the site of a considerable inland 
village. It is just the proper distance for one from the 
nearest seaport. A bush inn in such a situation is a 
sure fortune to a man of steady habits, and I should 
say that Mr. Edgar is, in a worldly point of view, a 
thriving man. 

From Edgar's Inn, at the Second River, the road 
crosses Mount Eckersley by a steep ascent, and then 



194 FHILLIPSL AND. 

the southern branch of the Rifle Range, the route be- 
ing occasionally through " thick forests of eucalypti, 
casuarinae strictae, casuarinae torulosae, mimosae, ex- 
ocarpi cupressiformis, (lightwood of the settlers) and 
here and there a myrtus Australia." The reader will 
perceive from this specimen, which I quote from Mr. 
Tyers' Report, how very unfortunate it would have 
been for him if I had been even a smatterer in botany, 
like certain other writers from Botany Bay, and had 
made him stop at every tree on this long journey till 
I should tell him, in learned Latin that would pro- 
bably leave him no wiser than before, to what botani- 
cal genus and species it belonged. I can assure him 
w e shall get forward a great deal faster — for this best 
of reasons, that I happen not to know the Latin 
names of most of the bush trees myself. For without 
wishing to undervalue a science I have never culti- 
vated — perhaps from the want of that distinct vision 
which its successful cultivation requires — I have al- 
ways thought with Pope, that 

The proper study of mankind is Man. 

At fifteen miles from the Second River, we halted 
for a few minutes at Taylor's public house, evidently a 
much inferior concern to Edgar's ; and after crossing 
the northern branch of the Rifle Range, we halted again, 
in consequence of some difficulty in making the neces- 
sary arrangements, for an hour at Best's Inn, to give 
the horses a rest, as the stage from Edgar's to the 
Grange is forty miles. On my outward journey a 
pair of excellent horses had been driven this long stage 
on a remarkably hot day ; but it proved too much for 
the poor animals, for one of them died a few hours 
after we reached the inn at the Second River, where 
we halted for the night. It is only at particular places, 
on these thinly inhabited routes, that the mail horses 
can be left with safety ; and the stages are consequently 
longer or shorter accordingly. They vary from fif- 
teen to thirty miles. 



PORTLAND BAY AND THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 195 

The pasture is tolerably good on these ranges, as 
well as on the undulating and thinly wooded country 
on either side of them, and it is all occupied in exten- 
sive sheep runs, At Best's Inn I met a Mr. M 'In tyre, 
a respectable Scotch Highlander from Argyleshire, 
who had a sheep station somewhere in that part of the 
country. He had been six years in Port Phillip, hav- 
ing arrived about the same time as Mr. Richard How- 
itt. He had only £2 or £3 altogether when he went 
to the bush, I presume in the employment of some 
wealthier emigrant ; but he is now a Squatter on his 
own account, and the proprietor of 4000 sheep, form- 
ing four large flocks under as many hired shepherds, 
and is consequently on the fair way to fortune. And 
yet Mr. Howitt tells us, that " Australia Felix is a 
full-belly country, and nothing more !" I only wish 
certain other countries we know more of were even 
as much for the poor man. There would then be 
less need than there is at present for extensive emi- 
gration. 

From Best's Inn to the Grange, the termination of 
our first day's journey, the distance is fifteen miles, the 
course being somewhat to the northward of east. The 
country improves rapidly both in character and appear- 
ance the whole way, and in the neighbourhood of the 
Grange it becomes perfectly magnificent, consisting of 
hill and dale in the finest undulations, with large um- 
brageous trees thinly scattered over it, as if they had 
been planted expressly to beautify and adorn the land- 
scape. Lest the reader, however, should suppose that 
1 am inclined to exaggerate in such descriptions, I 
shall quote the few following short paragraphs from the 
Report of Mr. Commissioner Tyers, already repeatedly 
referred to, and prepared for the Government of New 
South Wales :— 

"The Grange Burn takes its rise eleven miles W.S.W. 
of Mount Sturgeon, the waters of which flow to the 
westward about thirty miles, and then join the Wan- 
non. 

" The country above this river has a park-like ap- 



196 



PH1LL1PSLAND. 



pearance ; the soil is black and rich, several feet deep, 
on a subsoil of clay. The pasturage is of the finest 
description. 

" This fine country extends at least fifty miles, and 
is watered by the Grange Burn, Wannon, Glenelg, and 
their tributaries." 

We had thus reached the southern extremity of this 
beautiful tract of country, which extends eastward to 
the Grampians, and westward to the present boundary 
of South Australia, and of which persons of all classes 
uniformly speak in the highest terms of admiration. 
On my journey outward I had passed along this part 
of the road at noon, and had consequently had a much 
better view of the country to the westward of the 
Grange than we had now ; for it was an hour or two 
after sunset before we reached our resting-place for the 
night, and it had rained heavily the greater part of the 
way. We were therefore both cold and wet when we 
reached the " Grange Inn," a comfortable and well- 
conducted house of entertainment for travellers, kept 
by another reputable Scotsman of the name of Rus- 
sell, whose snug " cozie" parlour, with its large fire of 
wood, was really acceptable to us at the time, even in 
the earlier half of the month of February, which cor- 
responds to that of August in the Northern hemi- 
sphere. 

The number of respectable Scotch Squatters in this 
western part of the territory — many of whom brought 
out hired servants of their own, who, after serving 
their time, have been enabled to establish themselves 
comfortably in the country in various capacities — is 
very considerable, in comparison with those from all 
other parts of the United Kingdom ; and if things had 
only been left to take their natural course, and an 
overwhelming Irish Roman Catholic population of the 
humbler classes had not been thrust into the country 
at the public expense, in direct opposition to the well 
known wishes and feelings of the really respectable 
portion of its inhabitants, by a Government that seem- 
ed, in this particular at least, to have been labouring 



PORTLAND BAY AND THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 197 

for the curses of posterity, Phillipsland, and especially 
the western parts of it, would soon have become quite 
a Scotch colony. Perhaps, indeed, there are people 
who may think it better for all parties interested, both 
at home and abroad, that it should rather become an 
Irish Roman Catholic colony, and be subjected to the 
absolute domination of the Romish priesthood — a con- 
summation to which things have been evidently and 
rapidly tending for the last few years — -and if there are 
such persons, all I would add is that I have no wish to 
argue the point with them ; for there is " no disputing 
about tastes" in these matters. 

The distance from Portland to the Grange, where 
the mail rests for the night, is sixty miles. 

We were off again at daybreak on the following 
morning ; our course for the next twenty miles, to 
Mount Sturgeon, the southern termination of the 
Grampians — whose bold outline to the left gave a pe- 
culiarly interesting character to the landscape in that 
direction — being nearly north-east. At the same time 
we were gradually " opening up" on the right — to use 
an appropriate nautical phrase — the great plain I had 
traversed on horseback for a hundred miles from Gee- 
long to Mount Shadwell ; Mount Napier and Mount 
Rouse, the latter of which I had seen from the summit 
of Mount Shadwell at the distance of thirty miles to the 
westward, appearing successively due south of us — the 
former about fifteen and the latter twenty miles distant. 
In the meantime, the country had become more level 
and less wooded, and was evidently a continuation of 
the same extensive plain, which thus joined o??, without 
any physical obstruction, either of mountain or valley, 
to the splendid country on the Glenelg. This appeared 
to me a very important feature, as it unquestionably is, 
in the physical conformation of the country ; as it 
showed that the construction of a wooden railway along 
the centre of that extensive plain — a measure of which 
I could no longer doubt the entire practicability — 
would in all likelihood carry a large portion, if not 
the whole, of the commerce of this rich inland western 



198 



PHILLIFSLAISlX 



country to the distant, but safe and commodious, har- 
bour of Geelong ;— for in all probability the construc- 
tion of such a mode of communication across the inter- 
vening mountainous country to the open road-stead of 
Portland, although the distance is only forty miles, 
would be as expensive as the construction of a line of 
a hundred and fifty miles across the plains to Geelong. 

We changed horses at the Squatting Station of Dr. 
Martin — a respectable Scotch Highlander, I believe, 
from the Island of Skye — at the foot of Mount Stur- 
geon, an exceedingly interesting and picturesque locali- 
ty, twenty miles from the Grange. Mount Sturgeon 
and Mount Abrupt — the latter of which, I have already 
had occasion to observe, is 1700 feet above the level 
of the plains — have an exceedingly bold and striking- 
appearance from a great distance either to the eastward 
or westward, from the circumstance of there being no 
intermediate hills of lesser elevation to detract from 
their great apparent height. Mount Abrupt, in par- 
ticular, which is situated a few miles to the northward 
of Mount Sturgeon, is a most commanding feature in 
the landscape, and Sir Thomas Mitchell deserves the 
highest credit for its singularly appropriate name. It 
reminded me of Virgil's 

" praeruptus aquae mons ; w 

for in certain aspects it strongly suggests the idea of a 
vast mountain-wave, of which the broken summit,, 
curling and toppling over, is threatening to engulf 
some unfortunate vessel in the fathomless abyss. 

" Mount Sturgeon," observes Mr. Commissioner 
Tyers, " and perhaps the whole of the Grampians, con- 
sists of a fine ferruginous sandstone, in which is imbed- 
ded a quantity of quartz ; but between this and Mount 
Eckersley, the rocks are chiefly trap." Mount Eckers- 
ley, which I have already mentioned as being about 
twenty miles to the northward of Portland, is sixty 
miles in a direct line south-west of Mount Sturgeon^ 
and Mr. Tyers therefore bears testimony to the vol- 



PORTLAND BAY AND THE ROAD TO ^MELBOURNE. 199 



canic character and origin of the whole extent of the 
intermediate plain. 

On walking towards the precipitous sides of Mount 
Sturgeon, one is surprised to find that a river of con- 
siderable magnitude for this country- intervenes between 
him and the mountain, when nothing in the general 
aspect of the country would seem to indicate the exist- 
ence of a stream. It is the TTannon River, which, 
although it rises on the eastern slope of the Grampians, 
seems to have a strong penchant from the first towards 
the fine country to the westward, and. accordingly winds 
round the southern extremity of the mountain range as 
speedily as possible, and then strikes off to the west- 
ward. After receiving several rivers or tributaries 
from the southern and western Grampians, it receives 
the Grange Burn — another of Sir Thomas Mitchell's 
happy names — forty miles to the westward, and at 
length falls into the Glenelg about twenty miles farther 
west. Speaking of names, I confess I like that of the 
Glenelg for a river ; partly from the name itself, and 
partly because, in common with Sir Thomas Mitchell, 
I have always entertained the highest opinion of the 
man who bore it. 

The land all along from the Grange was excellent 
grazing land, but evidently equally well adapted for 
cultivation. The next stage — over an open, gently 
undulating, pastoral country — was twenty-five miles, 
and brought us to the Hopkins River, where w^e break- 
fasted at an inn kept by an Irishman. The practice 
on these colonial mail routes is to start at daybreak in 
summer, and long before it in winter, to travel from 
thirty to fifty miles before breakfast, and afterwards to 
push on without stopping, except to change horses, till 
night. In this way, a journey of nearly a hundred 
miles through the forest is, in summer, easily accom- 
plished in daylight ; but in winter, when the same 
distance has still to be travelled, a great part of the 
journey must be performed in darkness, and at such 
times, especially if the weather happens to be bad, 
travelling by the mail in the bush is uncomfortable 
enough. 



200 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



On one of these occasions, after having been exposed 
for upwards of thirty-six hours together to a cold 
piercing wind, with frequent rain and sleet, I experi- 
enced, from absolute weakness as I supposed at the 
time, one of those optical illusions that are not un- 
known in nosology. We had descended in pitch dark- 
ness into the valley of the Hume, upwards of two hun- 
dred miles from Melbourne, and the gleam from the 
lamps was occasionally lighting up for a moment the 
dark foliage of the tall forest trees on either side of the 
route, when suddenly there seemed to rise up on both 
sides of the road long lines of lofty buildings in every 
order of architecture and splendidly illuminated. At 
one time one of those ruined castles I had seen on the 
Ehine would seem to start up at a turn of the road in 
all its ancient baronial pride ; the blazonry of chivalry 
distinctly visible over its gates, the silent warder pacing 
to and fro upon its battlements in the costume and 
armour of the middle ages, and dame and knight flit- 
ting ever and anon past its diminutive windows. At 
another, one of those immense hotels that are frequent 
on the continent would seem to have its portals open 
and its crowds of busy attendants watching the arrival 
and departure of guests. I endeavoured to reason my- 
self out of the illusion, but to no purpose ; for as soon 
as I had satisfied myself that a particular figure was of 
that character, another and another would immediately 
rise up beyond it, as if to ask, " can this and this be 
an illusion also ?" I had therefore to throw the reins 
on my bewildered fancy, and to continue to gaze in a 
sort of indescribable condition between the possession 
of reason and the want of it, till I was at last forcibly 
aroused from my waking dream, when the mail stopped 
suddenly on the banks of the Hume, and I gladly de- 
scended, benumbed with cold, to the solitary river, 
where a boat was in waiting to ferry us across to the 
inn on the opposite side. 

I am inclined, however, to believe that this pheno- 
menon did not depend entirely on the accidentally weak 
condition of the observer : for it occurred to me on a 



PORTLAND BAY AND THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 201 

second winter journey overland, about two years there- 
after, in somewhat similar circumstances and in pre- 
cisely the same locality. On both of these occasions the 
mail-carriage consisted of a strong phaeton, drawn by 
two horses, and carrying only one passenger, besides 
the postman ; and on both also, the ground both in 
front of the carriage and on either side appeared to be 
a vast lake or inland sea through which there was no 
trace of a road, as far as I could see, in any direction. 
Xow. on most of the Australian rivers, there is an 
extensive evaporation from the surface of the water 
during the long winter nights, when the air is generally 
much colder than the water; and this evaporation 
generates a thick fog or mist, which diffuses itself on 
either side over the valley of the river. It was doubt- 
less this fog that gave the ground the appearance of a 
lake, and it was probably the gleam of light reflected 
and refracted in every possible direction by the " mist" 
on the trees that prompted the suggestions of fancy in 
conjuring up lines of illuminated buildings along the 
dark route through the solitary valley. In short, the 
whole phenomenon was in all likelihood a nocturnal 
mirage. This idea did not occur to me at the time, 
and I did not like to ask the postman whether he saw 
" anything uncommon," for two reasons ; first, because 
he had generally to travel the road alone, and the sug- 
gestion of such an idea might have made him " eerie" * 
on other occasions ; and secondly, because I thought 
he might fancy I had got a fit of " delirium tremens," 
a disease which is unfortunately by no means uncom- 
mon in the colony, and which always implies anything 
but " steady habits." 

The Hopkins River takes its rise in the Hopkins 
tier — a mountain range on the south-western face of 
the Australian Pyrenees — from whence it pursues a 
southerly course of at least ninety miles to the Great 



* A Scotch word expressive of superstitious fear. It has no 
equivalent in the English language. 



202 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



Southern Ocean at Warranambool, or Lady Bay, re- 
ceiving many creeks or tributaries on its way. It is 
thickly settled on either side the whole way down, 
that is, according to the ideas of settling a country 
entertained by the squatters — the upper part of its 
course being a superior pastoral country, and the lower 
remarkably adapted for agriculture. The station near- 
est the inn is held by a Scotch gentleman from the city 
of Glasgow, of the name of Wyselaski : his father was 
a Pole. 

From the Hopkins River — which, at the close of the 
very dry summer of 1845 and 1846, was in the upper 
part of its course merely a chain of ponds with scarcely 
a perceptible current — the next stage, to the Fiery 
Creek, is twenty miles. On this part of the route we 
pass on the left the two salt lakes at Mr. Patterson's 
station — where my journey on horseback with Dr. 
Thomson terminated — and Lake Bolac, of which the 
Fiery Creek is the principal feeder, on the right. For 
many miles on either side of the Fiery Creek, the 
country is an open plain, presenting the appearance of 
barrenness to a superficial observer, but really affording 
excellent pasturage for sheep from the great variety of 
the natural herbage. 

It is well observed by a recent and able writer on 
Port Phillip, that there are two descriptions of plains 
in that country ; the first consisting of " rich alluvial 
plots of deep brown loam, formed of decomposed trap, 
generally destitute of timber, but occasionally wooded ; 
and the second, of plains entirely free from timber, or 
else thinly sprinkled over with she-oaks or stunted 
honey-suckle trees ; the latter being sometimes of a 
light reddish clay soil, mixed with sand, and at others 
of a brown loam, but producing everywhere excellent 
food for sheep. A great part of the country, from 
Geelong to the River Grange, on the way to Portland 
Bay, going the southern road by the Lakes Colac, 
Poorumbeet, and Corangamite, and more to the south- 
ward still, towards Port Fairy — a tract of probably 
150 miles long, and varying from ten to thirty miles 



POETLAND BAY AND THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 203 

in breadth — consists of the first description. This de- 
scription of plains is admirably adapted for cattle or 
tillage, but not so well calculated for sheep, which on 
this rich soil are apt to suffer from foot-rot, unless very- 
well looked after. The second comprises the plains 
stretching from Melbourne westward forty miles to the 
Brisbane Eange ; from the ranges northward of the 
Saltwater Eiver towards Geelong, forty miles ; from 
the river Hopkins eastward by Mount Elephant, forty 
miles, and from the Pyrenees in the north to the 
Lakes Colac, Corangamite, &c, probably a hundred 
miles."* 

It is of this description of plains — of which, however, 
Mr. Griffith greatly over-estimates the breadth, for the 
whole distance from the Pyrenees to Lake Coranga- 
mite is only fifty miles — that Mr. Tyers writes in the 
following terms in his Report, making a still more se- 
rious mistake in regard to their character and value : — 
A barren plain, extending east and west about 
sixty miles, and about twenty or thirty broad, sepa- 
rates the fine country to the northward from that to 
the southward. The whole plain is covered with small 
pebbles of glossy ironstone, and fragments of dark po- 
rous ferruginous sandstone, which have a considerable 
effect upon the needle. It contains scarcely any tim- 
ber, except on the banks of rivers and lakes." 

Land that affords excellent pasture for sheep, and 
produces in abundance the peculiar staple of the coun- 
try, I mean fine wool, is scarcely entitled to the epi- 
thet " barren." I fell into precisely the same mistake 
myself, however, in volunteering an expression of opi- 
nion as to what I considered the sterility of the land 
near the Fiery Creek, when I was immediately cor- 
rected by a Scotch Squatter from the Glenelg, whom 
we had taken up at the Hopkins, and who observed 
that the very land over which we were then passing 



* The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District 
of New South Wales. By Charles Griffith, A.M., Dublin, 
1845. p. 9. 



204 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



had been selected by his brother, a highly competent 
judge in such matters, as a sheep station, from the ex- 
cellent character which he knew it possessed for fat- 
tening sheep. 

I consider it of the utmost importance for the future 
welfare and advancement, as well as for the speedy 
occupation and settlement of Phillipsland, that the 
portions of its territory, which are thus peculiarly ad- 
apted for cultivation, should be so situated, in reference 
to each other — as for instance, the arable lands ex- 
tending westward from Geelong to the western boun- 
dary of the Province — as to afford the means of trans- 
port for the agricultural population, by which they will 
doubtless be occupied at no distant period, at a com- 
paratively moderate cost, which would not be the case 
if they were separated from each other, as is generally 
the case in Xew South "Wales, by extensive tracts of 
a different and inferior description. On the other hand, 
the plains of the second class, which are not likely to 
be ever invaded by the plough, and which must always 
be occupied by an exclusively pastoral population, for 
whom such facilities of transport wall not be of the 
same indispensable necessity, are in quite a separate 
vein of country altogether, and do not interrupt the 
continuity of these extensive agricultural tracts. 

In order to avoid the AVurdy-yallock, and the other 
numerous feeders of the Lake Corangamite, which in 
winter are often large and rapid rivers, as also a series 
of hills called the Mount Burke Eanges to the east- 
ward, the road from the Fiery Creek takes a north- 
easterly direction, in the first instance, as far as Mount 
Emu — a solitary mountain, apparently of granite, form- 
ing a sort of advance guard for the Pyrenees, which 
are situated to the north-westward. It thus leaves 
the volcanic peaks of Mounts Elephant and Xanime 
far to the right, and approaches within ten or twelve 
miles of The Pyrenees Race Course! After passing 
Mount Emu, its course is first to the northward, and 
then to the southward of east, leaving another circular 
lake, apparently larger than Lake Colac, considerably 



PORTLAND BAY AND THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 205 



to the left. The stage from the Fiery Creek to Mount 
Emu. or rather to Gregory's Inn, a few miles to the 
eastward, is thirty-three miles. It presents a succes- 
sion of beautiful flats, remarkably well watered, and 
covered with luxuriant pasture. Springs and creeks, 
or rivulets, are numerous in this part of the country, 
and the grass is much mingled with wild herbage, of 
which sheep are remarkably fond. The country, after 
passing Mount Emu, gradually assumes an undulating 
character, and the scenery is often in the highest de- 
gree picturesque and beautiful. 

TTe halted for the night at Gregory's Inn, after a 
drive of ninety-eight miles from the Grange, and start- 
ed again at day-break on the following morning. 

Our first stage on the third day's journey was to 
Bunninyong, twenty miles, where we halted for break- 
fast, at a comfortable inn kept by a Scotch emigrant. 
Our route for this stage lay through a beautiful pasto- 
ral country the whole way. There were several steep 
ascents, however, which supplied abundant materials 
for picturesque scenery ; and the Pyrenees, which 
were visible as a line of blue mountains at the distance 
of twenty-five or thirty miles, formed the termination 
of our view to the left. 

Bunninyong is the site of a township, and is well 
selected for the purpose. It is close to the mountain 
of the same name, which rises 1570 feet above the bed 
of the river TVu.rdy-yallock, which again rises in the 
Bunninyong Range, and empties itself into the Lake 
Corangamite. That mountain is therefore a command- 
ing object in the landscape, to which indeed it com- 
municates its peculiar character. The surrounding 
country is well watered ; it is principally hill and dale, 
and but thinly wooded, the soil being a deep black 
mould : and as there is much land of this character in 
the vicinity, it will doubtless at no distant period, not- 
withstanding its present remoteness from a grain mar- 
ket.* form a noble field for the plough. In short, 



; It i.- from 40 to 50 miles frcm Geelong. 



206 



PHILLIP SL AND . 



Bunninyong is one of those spots in this splendid coun- 
try which I could not help regarding with peculiar 
interest, as being undoubtedly destined to be the future 
abode of a numerous and comparatively happy agri- 
cultural population. " Surely," I felt myself constrain- 
ed to exclaim, in gazing around and reckoning up the 
capabilities of this district, " there must be something 
grievously wrong in our political system, to have so 
much poverty and starvation at home, and such a 
country as this lying waste !" The mountain is said 
to be of volcanic origin, but whether it really is so, or 
whether there are any remains of a crater on its sum- 
mit, I had no opportunity of ascertaining. 

Our next stage was to Ballan, twenty miles ; cross- 
ing over high ridges, and a beautifully watered graz- 
ing country. On this part of our route we crossed 
the Marrabool River, which rises in the Brisbane or 
Bunninyong range, and forms one of the tributaries of 
the Barwon ; as also the head waters of the Nerriwillan 
or River Leigh, of the Squatters, a considerable stream, 
which, after a course of about thirty miles, also empties 
itself into the Barwon, to the westward of Geelong. 
The course from Bunninyong to Ballan, or rather to 
the Weiraby River, is north-easterly, and from that 
point it follows the valley of this river (which forms 
the eastern boundary of the district of Grant or Gee- 
long, and falls into Port Phillip, about half-way be- 
tween Geelong and Melbourne) in a south-easterly di- 
rection for thirty miles, crossing it at about ten miles 
from its mouth. In the dry summer of 1845 and 1846 
the Weiraby was scarcely running, its channel consist- 
ing merely of a succession of deep pools ; but in winter 
it becomes a large and rapid river, and it has been 
known to rise twelve feet in a single hour. At Smith's 
Flat, where we halted for a short time, two miles from 
Ballan, it forms a large deep basin, bounded on all 
sides by basaltic columns ; and above this basin the 
stream flows over a basaltic pavement of somewhat the 
same character as the Giants' Causeway, but the blocks 
are not quite so regularly formed. In descending to 



PORTLAND BAY AND THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 207 

the bed of the Weiraby River, to examine the struc- 
ture of the rocks around the basin or linn, I had 
a narrow escape from a large black snake, on which I 
was just going to place my foot, without observing it, 
when it providentially took the alarm on perceiving 
my approach, and escaped. Horresco referens! Truly 
" in the midst of life we are in death ;" for if I had 
only provoked the irritable animal by treading upon it, 
however lightly, it would probably have given me a 
dose of its deadly poison sufficient to have brought to 
a speedy termination not only my journey in Phillips- 
land, but my journey of life. 

There are wonderfully few casualties from these 
venomous reptiles, notwithstanding the vast extent of 
territory occupied in the great colony of New South 
Wales, and the number of persons that are necessarily 
exposed in one way or other to their contact. On my 
first arrival in the country I used to carry in my pocket 
a crooked needle, which had been given me for the 
purpose by a medical gentleman, to insert in the flesh 
and pull it up in the event of being bitten by a snake, 
to enable me to cut out the piece containing the wound 
with a penknife as quickly as possible and with the 
smallest possible excision ; and in walking out any 
where in the country I was always mindful of the 
warning — 

" Latet anguis in herba,"* 
and picked my footsteps through the long grass with 
great circumspection. But not having seen a snake 
for months together, as it happened to be the winter 
season at the time, I discontinued carrying the needle, 
and gradually became as fearless in walking among 
the grass as other people. 

There are some species of snakes in the colony whose 
bite is fatal within an hour ; there are others of which 
the venom is much less active ; and there are some, as 
the aborigines allege, that are not venomous at all. 
Besides, the bite is not always fatal ; and if the piece 

* There is a snake lurking in the grass. 



208 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



containing the wound is cut out immediately, or if the 
poison is sucked out by any person resolute enough to 
make the experiment, and especially by a black native, 
the recovery of the patient is almost certain. Poisons 
that act through the circulation have seldom any effect 
upon the stomach ; but the black fellows who officiate 
on such occasions are very careful in ejecting what- 
ever peccant matter they can extract by suction from 
the wound, rinsing their mouth with water immedi- 
ately after, as in the event of there being any cut or 
wound about the lips or mouth, the poison would iix 
upon it at once. 

It will be an interesting, and by no means an un- 
important object in the department of natural history 
in the colony, whenever the colonial authorities come to 
have any real regard for the advancement of science 
and the cause of education, to enumerate and classify 
the different species of snakes in Australia, and to 
ascertain, as far as may be practicable, the species that 
are really venomous and the degree in which their 
virus is fatal to human life. The black natives would 
be of great use in pursuing such an inquiry, both in 
procuring specimens of the different species and in 
explaining their respective qualities. Besides, it is 
neither prudent nor proper to allow the really useful 
knowledge which these keen observers of nature in all 
her moods and phases have acquired on this subject in 
the course of many centuries to be totally lost to the 
colonial world. There is certainly no part of the world 
in which any person has less to fear from noxious 
animals of any kind than in Australia ; except, perhaps, 
in New r Zealand, where there are not even snakes. 
Indeed the only animal in both countries, of which one 
has any reason to be apprehensive, is man himself; 
who, according to the great Roman naturalist, is the 
most dangerous of all noxious animals, and the only 
one that preys upon his own species.* 



* Denique caetera animantia in suo genere probe degunt: con- 
gregari vidimus et stare contra dissimilia: leonum feritas inter se 



PORTLAND BAY AND THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 209 



There is much good land on the Marrabool River, 
both towards its sources and towards its mouth. 

The next stage from Ballan to Bacchus' Marsh on 
the Weiraby River, is also twenty miles. On this part 
of the route, hills of considerable height appear to the 
right and left, and occasionally cross the mail-track. 
They are uniformly covered with rich grass to their 
summits, and they alternate w r ith beautiful rich flats 
and fertile vales. The country is delightfully varie- 
gated, and gradually assumes a more open character, 
spreading out into extensive plains of the second class, 
apparently adapted for sheep pasture. The Marsh is 
rather an interesting locality, and appears to have 
been the site of an ancient lake. 

A few miles from Ballan, Ave halted at the Post 
Office for the surrounding district. It is kept at a 
station belonging to Peter Ingiis, Esq. from Glasgow, 
an extensive proprietor of stock in this vicinity, who 
has built a house of a permanent character, in which he 
resides a few miles off, in a locality where the scenery, 
from the account I received of it from a literary friend 
in Melbourne, is of a mountainous character and of the 
most magnificent description imaginable. Mr. Alder- 
man Russell, of Melbourne, also from Glasgow, and 
his wife, a niece of Mr. Ingiis', happened to be on a 



non dimicat: serpentum morsus non petit serjientes : ne maris qui- 
dem belluae ac pisces, nisi in diversa genera, saeviunt : at, Her- 
cule! homini plurima ex homine sunt mala. 

flirt. Hist. Nat. vii. Procemium. 

" Other animals live peaceably enough with their own kind, and 
we have even seen them collect together and defend themselves 
against animals of a different kind. The fierce lions never tear 
and devour one another : snakes do not bite other snakes : nor 
even do the sea monsters and voracious fishes satiate their rage, 
except upon animals of a different species. But, by Hercules ! 
man's greatest enemy, and the source of his greatest calamities, 
is his fellow-man !" 

How humiliating it is to be obliged to acknowledge that, with 
Christianity in the world for nearly two thousand years, there is 
still no improvement ! Witness the late paltry affair of the 
Oregon, that might have arrayed against each other in bloody 
war the first two of the so-called Christian nations of the world. 

O 



210 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



visit to Mr. I. at the time, from the provincial capital ; 
and the party, to all of whom I was previously well 
known, having learned that I was to pass about mid- 
day by the mail from Portland, did me the honour to 
come down to meet me, in Mr. Inglis' carriage, at the 
Post Office, bringing along with them, in various bas- 
kets that had been stowed away in the carriage, " all 
manner of bakemeats," the materials ready prepared 
of a sumptuous repast, to which my two fellow-travellers 
were also invited. The Port Phillip potatoes, which 
are really of first-rate character, and have happily as 
yet escaped the disease, were the only article that re- 
quired boiling on the occasion, and this was done 
while the mail was assorting ; but as soon as the letters 
and papers were all cleared away, a beautifully white 
table-cloth, which Mrs. Russell, with the foresight of 
her sex. had provided, took the place of the mail bags, 
and w^e all arranged ourselves the best way we could 
around the Post Office table and made a most comfort- 
able repast, which was not the less acceptable that it 
was altogether unexpected. Mr. Inglis, in his zeal for 
" the speedy and entire Separation of Port Phillip from 
the colony of New South Wales" — a measure with 
which my name happened to be associated very gene- 
rally at the moment in the province — had even pro- 
vided some genuine Scotch Highland whisky, a great 
rarity in these " uttermost ends of the earth," to drink 
to its success before we started. I will not so far 
compromise my own personal character with the Tee- 
totallers — who, perhaps, are somewhat intolerant — as to 
make a voluntary and gratuitous confession that I 
actually tasted the " rank poison" myself ; but as I had 
so recently before escaped the poison of a snake, per- 
haps they will allow that I might have tasted it 
" medicinally." TTe had asked only about half an 
hour beyond the usual time, and the obliging postman 
doubtless granted it the more readily from the prospect 
of personally sharing in the spoil. It was a most 
agreeable halt, and formed one of those pleasing little 
incidents in the journey of life that are not likely to be 
speedily forgotten. 



PORTLAND BAY AXD THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 211 



During our short stay at the Post Office, I learned 
from Mr. Inglis and his brother-in-law, Mr. Fiskin, 
that the soil in the surrounding valley and on the sides 
of the hills is of the most exuberant fertility. Wheat, 
on Mr. Inglis' station, had actually attained the asto- 
nishing height of seven feet, and the produce in grain 
is equally extraordinary. Mr. Fiskin had not actually 
measured the quantity, but, being experienced in such 
matters, he had calculated that it must have been not 
less than sixty-five bushels an acre. There has appa- 
rently been much volcanic action at some time or other 
in this region, and the soil in these spots of surpassing 
fertility consists in all likelihood of decomposed lava. 
It is the existence of such a soil, and the experience 
they have had for ages of its extraordinary productive- 
ness, that makes the poor Italian cling to his Mount 
Vesuvius, at the risk of being overwhelmed, like the 
cities of Pompeii and Herculaueum, by one of its awful 
eruptions. And why should soil of equal powers of 
production continue to lie waste and unoccupied in one 
of the most easily accessible of the provinces of the 
British Empire, in which, moreover, there are no such 
eruptions to be feared : especially when millions of our 
population are on the very brink of starvation forwani 
of the smallest portion of land to raise bread for their 
families 1 

The next stage, from Bacchus' Marsh to Keillor, 
was twenty-five miles. It consisted of a series of very 
steep ascents from the Marsh, and then grassy plains 
of the second class, destitute of timber, on which a 
flock of sheep was occasionally seen browsing in the 
distance, under the charge of a solitary shepherd and 
his clogs. 

Keillor is a very singular locality. It consists of a 
circular plain, of about half a mile in diameter, sur- 
rounded by a regular terrace, presenting a remarkably 
uniform face all round to the plain, except at one point 
where a creek— the Saltwater River — which has broken 
into the plain and flowed along it for a little way under 
the terrace, breaks out again and continues its course to 



212 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



Hobson's Bay. The Keillor Inn is built on the circu- 
lar plain, near a pool of water : and as the landlord — 
a Scotch Highlander, of the name of M'Kecheran — had 
just taken a crop of wheat off the plain, which left its 
surface of a brownish hue. the whole remarkable en- 
closure, when viewed from above, had exactly the 
appearance of a bowl or round basin about two- thirds 
filled with raw sugar. It is unquestionably the crater 
of an extinct volcano ; and it appears to me to be 
equally evident, from the manner in which it has been 
filled up to its present level the whole way across, that 
this filling up must have taken place when the whole 
country in that neighbourhood was many a fathom 
deep under the waves of the sea. If the volcano was 
originally formed on land, the land must have been 
subsequently submerged, and afterwards raised again 
above the level of the ocean — which would account for 
the phenomenon noticed by Sir Thomas Mitchell, that 
of the Glenelg River having cut its way through the 
long line of limestone cliffs that now form its banks — 
for the present level of the land may be somewhat 
lower than ir was when the volcano originally burst 
forth and the Glenelg River forced its way to the sea. 
But if, on the contrary, the volcano was of submarine 
origin, its vast caldron must have ceased to boil, with 
the liquid fire that originally filled it, for ages before it 
became dry land, to admit of that caldron being filled 
up to its present level by the gradual spreading out of 
the matter washed into it by the sea along its unequal 
bottom. At all events, the crater at Keillor must un- 
questionably be classified with the Lake Murdiwarry. 
and the numerous circular lakes of the western plains. 
How extremely interesting, therefore, will it not be to 
the scientific world to have as minute an examination 
— whenever such an examination may be made — of the 
various phenomena of this great theatre of volcanic 
action as that which has been so ably instituted into 
those of the mountains of Auvergne in France ? I ques- 
tion whether there is any part of Europe in which the 
traces of such action are clearly discernible over so 



PORTLAND BAY AND THE ROAD TO MELBOURNE. 213 



extensive a tract of country as that of the extinct vol- 
canoes of Phillipsland. 

The mail usually stops for the night at Keillor, and 
the kindness of Mr. Ingiis and his friends had not 
enabled us to reach that station at an earlier hour than 
usual. But the postman — who had driven us all the 
way from the Fiery Creek, and who wished also to 
show his zeal for " Separation" — observing that the 
accommodation at Keillor was not particularly good, 
offered to drive us at once into town, an offer which 
my fellow-travellers and myself were all very glad to 
accept. The last pair of fresh horses were accordingly 
attached to our vehicle, and by dint of excellent driv- 
ing across the treeless plains, we reached Melbourne in 
about an hour from Keillor, on Thursday evening at 
nine o'clock. Our third clay's journey was ninety-five 
miles — the distance from Keillor to Melbourne being 
ten miles, and the whole distance from Portland two 
hundred and -fifty- three. 



CHAPTER VII. 



"WESTERN PORT AXD GIPPSLAND. 

Western Port is a noble inlet, situated to the 
eastward of Port Phillip, in latitude 38° 15' S., and in 
longitude 145° 30' E. It was discovered from the 
eastward, in the year 1798, by Mr. Bass, surgeon of 
H. M. S. Reliance ; who, after spending 13 days in it 
and surveying it minutely, gave it the name which it 
now bears, from the circumstance of its having been 
the utmost limits of the discoveries of that intrepid 
-explorer to the westward. 

Western Port consists of a large circular basin, of 
about eighteen miles across, with an island, called 
Frenchman's Island, of about twelve miles in length 
and six in breadth, in its centre, which thus divides it 
into an eastern and western arm. There is another 
island, however, called Phillip Island, of about fifteen 
miles long, stretching across the mouth of the Port, a 
few miles to seaward from Frenchman's Island, which 
effectually shelters the entrance of the harbour, and 
renders it easily accessible for sailing vessels in any 
wind. 

In the year 1827, a Penal Settlement was formed at 
Western Port, as a dependency of Xew South Wales, 
and the office of Commandant was given to Captain 
Hovell, the companion and fellow-traveller of Mr. 
Hamilton Hume in their famous journey overland from 
Sydney to Port Phillip in the year 1825, in the course 
of which these gentlemen discovered the Hume, the 
Ovens, and the Goulburn Rivers ; but, for some reason 
which, I recollect perfectly, was not particularly obvi- 



WESTERN PORT AND GIPPSLAND. 



215 



ous to the colonial public at the time, the settlement 
was soon abandoned — like fifty other Government abor- 
tions of a similar kind on the coast of Australia, pro- 
jected in ignorance and folly, and managed by inca- 
pacity. 

" Western Port," according to, Mr. Hovell, " affords 
safe anchorage for vessels of any draught of water." 
The Government Settlement was situated on the east 
side of the bay, and the country from this spot to Bass' 
River, which enters the Port from the northward, 
" consists principally," Mr. Hovell informs us, " of a 
rich alluvial soil, interspersed here and there with 
patches of heath." 

The district of Western Port undoubtedly presents 
superior capabilities. It contains an abundance of 
land of the first quality for cultivation ; although, in 
general, the arable land in the immediate vicinity of 
the port is covered with timber. The extent of ex- 
cellent grazing land in the district is much greater ; 
although, from the general moistness of the soil and 
climate, it is better adapted for cattle than for sheep. 
The bay abounds with fish of the finest description ; 
and fuller's earth, and various other mineral products, 
are found in the vicinity. But the circumstance that 
will unquestionably render this district of the first 
importance in Phillipsland, is the inexhaustible supply 
of coal which it contains. In a comparatively thinly 
wooded country, like a large portion of the best part 
of the territory of Phillipsland, especially in a climate 
considerably colder than that of New South Wales, 
this valuable mineral will necessarily be in great re- 
quest, and the coal trade will consequently be of the 
utmost importance to the future inhabitants of this 
district. 

" From Wilsons Promontory to Western Port," 
observes Mr. Cunningham, during whose residence in 
New South Wales this district attracted more attention 
than it has done till very recently, from the circum- 
stance of the abortive attempt to form a Settlement 
in Western Port having taken place about that period, 



216 



PKILLIPSLAND. 



" the coast stretches along in a westerly direction round 
Cape Liptrap, about sixty or seventy miles, bounding 
an extent of country described as the finest ever be- 
held, and reaching apparently about forty miles to the 
foot of a very lofty range of mountains running parallel 
with the coast. In part it resembles the park of a 
country-seat in England — the trees standing in pictur- 
esque groups to ornament the landscape. The timber 
is mostly the same as in Yan Dieman's Land, but some 
of the species in that genial climate attain greater size 
and beauty. In other parts the eye wanders over tracts 
of meadow land, waving with a heavy crop of grass, 
which, being annually burnt down by the natives, is 
reproduced every season. In these situations large 
farms might be cultivated, without a tree to interrupt 
the plough. Various fresh-water lagoons lie scattered 
on the surface, and about eight miles up the Western 
River a branch stream intersects it. A second tributary 
stream falls by a cascade into this latter, about five or 
six miles up, navigable for small vessels where there is 
an eligible situation for a town. The mouth of the 
Port is about thirty miles wide.* An island, called 
Phillip's Island, occupies the centre, stretching about 
thirteen miles, leaving an entrance at each extremity. 
From the headland of the eastern main a reef runs 
towards the island, leaving a narrow entrance for ships, 
but hazardous to one unacquainted with the passage. 
The western entrance is, however, safe and commodious 
for vessels of any burden." j" 

I have no doubt, from all I have heard from persons 
who have either visited Western Port or are now re- 
siding in the district in the capacity of squatters, that 
this is a fair and unexaggerated description of the 
locality ; the capabilities of which — whether in an 
agricultural and pastoral, or in a commercial point of 



* He means the exterior mouth from Cape Shanck to Cape 
Wollamai. 

f Two Years in New South Wales, &c. By P. Cunningham, 
Esq., Surgeon, R.N. 



WESTERN PORT AND GIPPSLAND. 217 

view — are unquestionably great. The present popu- 
lation of Western Port, as a Squatting District, is 3525 
persons, of both sexes and of all ages. 

Although the distance from the Heads of Port Phil- 
lip to Point Grant — the western extremity of Phillip's 
Island — is little more than thirty miles, the whole dis- 
tance, from the basin at Melbourne to the anchorage 
at the old Government Settlement on the eastern side 
of Western Port, is about 120 miles. Only one-fourth 
part of that distance, however, would be run in the 
open ocean ; the rest of the passage would be in smooth 
water, either within the Heads of Port Phillip or in 
the Sound of Western Port. I have not been in the 
latter Port myself, but I have passed its mouth repeat- 
edly close in shore, in going to and from Port Phillip 
in steamboats. 

Gippsland is situated at the south-eastern extremity 
of the Australian land, and extends from Wilson's 
Promontory to Cape Howe, being bounded towards the 
south by the coast-line between these two headlands ; 
towards the north-east by the boundary of New South 
Wales Proper ; by the Snowy Mountains or Australian 
Alps to the north-westward ; and by the Dividing Range 
terminating in Wilson's Promontory to the west. The 
credit of having been the discoverer of the rich, though 
limited, tract of country included within these limits, is 
commonly given to the Polish traveller, Count Strze- 
lecki, by whom, at least, the merit of the discovery has 
been assumed ; but it is pretty generally believed in 
New South Wales that the discovery was really effected 
by Mr. A. M'Millan^ a respectable Scotchman, who 
was then employed as a superintendent or overseer by 
Lachlan and Matthew MAlister, Esqrs., J. P. — two 
gentlemen from the Highlands of Scotland who have 
long been settled in the colony, and were then exten- 
sive proprietors of stock in the direction of the Snowy 
Mountains. It is well known, however, that when a 
settler or squatter in Australia discovers an eligible 
tract of country, he is generally in no hurry to let the 
world know of it, but rather endeavours to keep it 



218 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



concealed, that his own flocks and herds mar luxuriate 
on the rich grass it produces as long and as quietly as 
possible without interruption ; and it is alleged, that 
either from thh cause, or from some delay, either un- 
avoidable or injudicious, on the part of Mr. MOIillan. 
his discovery was not publicly notified to the colony, 
till Count Strzelecki, who happened to be exploring in 
the neighbourhood, hearing of the circumstance through 
some stockmen, got upon his track and appropriated 
his laurels. I happened to be in England myself at 
the time, and I would not wish, therefore, to speak 
decidedly on the subject ; but the Scotchman's narra- 
tive, which will be found below, and which I must say 
is very generally believed in the colony to be in strict 
accordance with the facts of the case, has an air of 
truth on the face of it of which it is difficult to resist 
the impression. At the same time, I must take the 
liberty to add that I have had occasion to observe, in 
repeated instances, that of all classes of professional 
men. there is none so little disposed to do justice to the 
merits of others when they happen to come into com- 
petition with their own. as the class of geographical 
discoverers. 

The following is Mr. MOdillan's Letter, prefaced 
with an Editorial article on the subject, contained in 
The Colo?ii£t> a Colonial Journal, of the 9th Julv, 
1840:— 

A few weeks ago the graziers of this colony were highly de- 
lighted by the announcement made through the Melbourne news- 
papers, that a splendid new country had been discovered, by 
Count Streletski, down along the coast, this side of Port Phillip. 
To the graziers whose runs or stations may have been over- 
stocked, and indeed to the public at large, the discovery of this 
country was an event of considerable importance, and the party 
by whose exploratory enterprise that discovery was effected, cer- 
tainly deserves no small share of credit. The fact of the dis- 
covery being understood to be made by a noble and intelligent 
foreigner, did not of course detract from the interest excited by 
it. Although, however, some credit is due to Count Streletski, 
for having been the first to announce the discovery to the public, 
we have very good reason to believe that he was not the first 
European who discovered or explored that country ; that the 



WESTERN PORT AND GIPPSLAND. 



219 



Count, in fact, has been taking the merit to himself of a discovery 
which he knew had previously been effected by another. From 
the subjoined letter from Mr. A. M'Millan, to L. M'Alister, 
Esquire, of Clifton, and dated Currawang, 18th February, 1840, 
the public will see that this new country had been discovered 
and explored by Mr. M'M. and his party so early as January 
last. 

It appears that some months after Mr. M'Millan had made 
this exploratory excursion, Count Streletski visited the sta- 
tion which Mr. M'Millan had recently established on Bow- 
man's River — a stream which empties itself into Lake Victoria : 
these places were so named by their discoverer, Mr. M'Millan. 
It was there that the Count was furnished with intelligence of 
Mr. M'Millan's discovery ; moreover, one of the young gentle- 
men at that station accompanied the Count to the top of the coast 
range, where he parted from him upon M'Millan's track, which 
the Count had no difficulty in following, with the assistance of the 
black native that accompanied him. Pursuing the footsteps of 
Mr. M'Millan's party, and taking advantage of the information 
he had thus acquired, the Count prosecuted the journey which 
he has described, until he struck off into the Alpine Range, where 
he encountered so much difficulty. 

From the minute description contained in Mr. M'M.'s letter, 
together with its date, and the facts above mentioned, we think 
it a clear case that the credit of this discovery does not belong 
to the Count, and that he must have known that it did not, when 
he claimed the merit of it from the public. There is something 
very disingenuous in this concealment ; it may correspond with 
Streletski's notions of honour to usurp or pirate another man's 
discovery, but it is anything but handsome in the estimation of 
a genuine Englishman. Like the jackdaw in the fable, the 
Count must be stripped of his borrowed plumage ; or, to use a less 
fanciful metaphor, we think it but justice to pmt the saddle on the 
proper horse. 

The reason why Mr. M'iUister, to whom Mr. M'Millan's re- 
port of this discovery was addressed, did not make the discovery 
public, must be obvious ; that gentleman very naturally wished 
to be the first to benefit by the discovery himself, and of course 
felt it his interest to keep his information to himself, for some 
time at least. Count S. had no such interested motives for with- 
holding the glad tidings of his glorious discovery ; the gratifica- 
tion of his own vanity, and the acquisition of some celebrity and 
notice, was evidently his only object. Along with his Report, Mr. 
M'M. forwarded a map, drawn by himself, in which the lake, and 
other prominent features of the new country, are laid down. 
The nomenclature, too, which Mr. M'Millan has applied is, in our 
opinion, much more felicitous and appropriate than that adopted 
by Count Streletski. He calls the country Gipps' Lar.d : Mr. 
M'M., struck with the resemblance which it bore to the pictur- 
esque scenery of his native land, styled the country Caledonia 



220 



PHILLIFSL A2s D . 



Australis. The Count called the splendid sheet of water, which 
forms so noble a feature in the country, by the uame of Lake 
King ( !) : the original discoverer distinguished it by the title of 
Lake Victoria, in honour of the Sovereign of the land. The 
plains he called M-'Arthur's Plains, in respect to the memory 
of the late John M< Arthur, Esq., of Camden, to whose wisdom 
and enterprise as a settler this colony owes so much ; and to the 
river he speaks of as flowing into the lake, he gave the name of 
M*'Alister River, in compliment to his employer. To these 
names the public ought unquestionably to give the preference, 
not only because they were given by the original discoverer of 
the country, but on account of the feelings which suggested them, 
and with which they will ever be associated, and because they 
are more dignified and appropriate than those proposed by the 
Count. Besides, the Count's right of discovery has been dis- 
proved, and his nomenclature, of course, should now be thrown 
overboard. 

We shall now refer our readers to Mr. M'Millan's letter for 
the narrative of his exploratory excursion, and the proofs of his 
right to the credit of the discovery of Caledonia Australis, Lake 
Victoria, &c. : — 

Extract from a letter from Mr. M'Millan, dated Currawang, 
February 18> 1840 : — " Being well aware that you are anxious 
to know my position and distance from Corner Inlet, I am now 
happy that I can give you some information on that head. On 
the 11th January, 1840, I started from our present station, ac- 
companied by Mr. Matthew, Mr. Cameron, one stockman, and a 
black fellow, having stopped a day on the mountains. On the 
13th, got over the Coast Range, which is very barren and 
scrubby. Tuesday, the 14th, travelling near the river on which 
is our station, (distance about thirty miles,) the river here is 
large, with extensive flats on both sides, backed by beautiful 
open forest. Wednesday, the loth, still near the river and the 
country improving ; at 4 p.m. came to a very large fresh water 
lake, where the river empties itself. The country is quite flat, 
a thick sward of good grass, and the Soil appears very fertile ; the 
water in the lake is a little brackish, but tit for use. Thursday, 
1 fith, changed our course from south-south-west, and sometimes 
west, to head the creeks from the lake. After travelling for three 
hours, came to a large river, which I named Nicholson River, 
and which must flow into the same lake ; it is about thirty yards 
broad in some places, twelve feet deep, and quite still ; the coun- 
try on both sides is delightful ; crossing it being out of the ques- 
tion where the land is low, for the banks are swampy. Made for 
the ranges which were about eight miles from us, got into a very 
rugged and hilly country, but forded the river late in the evening, 
being then sixteen miles from the lake. January 17, course, 
south-south-west, to head the lake and get to the beach range, 
which comes to the edge of the water. At 10 o'clock a.m., came 
upon another river (the Mitchell), much larger than the last, 



TTESTERN POUT AND GIPFSLAXD. 



221 



which is surrounded by the most delightful country I ever beheld, 
well adapted for cattle, sheep, or cultivation. 19th. Crossed the 
river with very great difficulty near the ranges. Travelled all day 
over a beautiful she -oak forest, well watered with a chain of ponds. 
20th, Came to the bank of a very large lake, which I think is a 
continuation of the one we were at before ; if it is, it must be a 
tremendous sheet of water, at least sixty miles long, and from 
twelve to fifteen miles broad ; on the edges are very extensive 
flats free of timber, and backed by forest of great extent. 21st, 
Passed over some barren country this day, in consequence of 
having to keep too near the ranges to head some creeks or ex- 
tensive morasses on the banks of a very large river, wdrich was 
the third one that retarded our progress : it I named the Avon. 
22cl, Crossed this large river, which empties itself into the lake, 
which we named Lake Victoria. Country still improving, if it is 
possible to do so. 4 p.m., Came to a very extensive plain from 
four to five miles broad, where we crossed, and extends to the 
morass on the back of the beach range, distance eight miles to 
the north : it is as far as T could see. This delightful tract of 
country we took the liberty of naming M' Arthur's Plains, in hon- 
our of the memory of the late John M< Arthur, Esquire, of Cam- 
den. The large river that .surrounds it on the west side, I named 
M'Alister's River. -This beautiful river is the largest we* met 
with, runs very rapid, about thirty yards broad, and twelve feet 
deep. J anuary 23d, followed the M'Aiister river, for a few miles, 
course south-west ; at 1 0 o'clock a.m., came to a very large 
morass, at the back of the beach range, the morass seems to ex- 
tend all the way from the west end of Lake Victoria ; in some 
places it is more than a mile broad. After making several at- 
tempts to cross it without succeeding, we were obliged to abandon 
the idea of getting further ; as for crossing the river where it 
changed its course from S.W. to S.S.E., it was quite out of 
the question ; we might have succeeded in a canoe, but our black 
fellow could not get a tree to strip. As the last resource, I pro- 
posed to go up the river in hopes it might be found fordable, 
after leaving the low country which seemed to extend to the bot- 
tom of the Snowy Mountains. The proposition could not be exe- 
cuted, as our provisions were reduced to ten pounds of flour, one 
small damper, and a little tea, our allowance when we left home 
being only for fourteen days, and being then twelve days away, 
it was full time to think of returning ; this was very galling, when 
one day more would bring us to the point desired. To give you 
an idea of where we put back — where the Australian Alps termi- 
nate at Wilson's Promontory, was not more than twenty-five miles 
from us, bearing S.S.W. ; to the north the Alps were'completely 
surrounding us, distance thirty miles, so that I am almost sure 
Corner Inlet could not be more than twelve or fifteen miles from 
us, and now I am led to think those two inlets you mention must 
have a communication with Lake Victoria, and the back range 
which extends to the above mentioned lake, answers the same 



222 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



description as given in the maps. This discovery we named Xew 
South Caledonia; which would require a more able pen than mine 
to describe, but from the short and hurried account I have given 3 
you will be able to judge what it is. I may here say, that it is 
naturally fenced in such a way that cattle will not attempt to get 
out of it ; it is bounded on the north and west by the Australian 
Alps and coast range, on the south by the main ocean, and on the 
east partly by Lake Victoria ; but the good country extends fur- 
ther east than this lake, and divided by large rivers, some of 
which are navigable for large boats up to the ranges. 

" We arrived at home on the 29th January, having performed 
the journey back in five days. 

The blacks are very numerous down at the coast, and always 
ran away and burnt their camps whenever they saw us, sometimes 
leaving everything they had behind ; the day before we returned 
found one of their net bags with a carpenter's auger in it, which 
they must have got from some vessel ; we met one old fellow who 
could neither run nor hide himself, but our black guide could not 
understand him." ? 

" About seventeen miles from Omeo, to the S.E. 
and at the crossing of the Dividing Range," says Count 
Strzelecki. in his Report to the Governor of Xew South 
Wales of his explorations and discoveries, in the direc- 
tion of the Snowy Mountains, begins the third 
division,'' — referring to certain geographical divisions 
of that country, with which it is unnecessary to trouble 
the reader. — " a division which, on account of its ex- 
tensive riches as a pastoral country, its open forests, 
its inland navigation, rivers, timber, climate, proximity 
to the sea-coast, probable outlets, and more than pro- 
bable boat and small craft harbours, its easy laud 
communication, the neighbourhood of Corner Inlet and 
Western Port, the gradual elevation, more hilly than 
mountainous, and finally, of the cheering prospects to 
future settlers which this country holds out, and which 
it was my lot to discover. I took the liberty of naming, 
in honour of his Excellency the Governor. Gippsland." 

Corner Inlet, which is mentioned in this paragraph 
by Count Strzelecki. is situated in the elbow or angle 
which Wilson's Promontory makes to the eastward 
with the line of coast. It would be valuable for navi- 
gation, if the land around it were of any value ; but as 
the latter is utterly worthless, it is not likely to be 



WESTERN POET AND GIPPSLAND. 



223 



turned to any account, especially as there is a good 
port about fifteen miles to the eastward, which com- 
municates directly with the best portion of Gippsland. 
That port is called Port Albert, and is available for 
vessels of two hundred tons. Port Albert is situated 
in latitude 38° 44' S., and in longitude 146° 41' E. 
The entrance is rather intricate and circuitous, but it 
is by no means dangerous to those who are at all 
acquainted with the channel — requiring only proper 
buoys and beacons, and a light-house, to be easily 
available to all nautical men. It has also this special 
advantage, that when it would be unsafe — as I suspect 
it would in a violent south-easterly gale — to attempt 
the channel, there is shelter for vessels close at hand, 
between Rabbit Island and the mainland of Wilson's 
Promontory, about twelve or fifteen miles to the west- 
ward ; and for vessels bound either to Port Phillip, or 
farther westward, there is a safe and commodious port 
of refuge, during the south-westerly gales of this coast, 
on the eastern side of the extremity of the Promontory, 
called Lady's Bay, where a vessel, and especially a 
steam vessel, can be in perfect safety till the gale 
moderates sufficiently to allow her to pursue her course 
to the westward. 

" Lady's Bay is a small securely sheltered cove, 
w T ith a depth in many places of from seven to eight 
fathoms water, on the eastern side of ^Wilson's Promon- 
tory, about four or five miles from its extremity. It 
was named by Captain "Wishart, who discovered it, 
after his vessel, The Lady of the Lake. Lady's Bay is 
so free from dangers, that the mariner in entering 
might touch the rocks with his vessel's broadside, and 
still float in six fathoms water. The shores are rocky, 
exceedingly steep, and covered with dense impene- 
trable scrub : the rocks are principally of granite, 
Good water is to be obtained in this locality. The 
Bay, too, has the usual character of unfrequented har- 
bours on this coast — abounding with fish." * 



* From the Port Phillip Patriot, 



224 



PHILLIPS LAND. 



I was never in Gippsland myself ; but as I passed 
close in shore, on board the Shamrock steamboat 
bound from Sydney to Port Phillip, in the year 1 845. 
across the mouths both of Port Albert and Lady's Bav. 
I can bear testimony to the admirable adaptation of 
the former of these ports, especially with the harbour 
of refuge which the latter presents during the preva- 
lence of violent gales, for the purposes of steam naviga- 
tion to and from Port Phillip. 

The principal feature in the topography of Gippsland 
is a lake, or rather series of lakes, communicating with 
each other, and running parallel to the coast-line. The 
largest of these lakes, and the farthest west, is Lake 
Wellington, which is about twenty miles long and 
about half that breadth — the one farthest to the east- 
ward being named Lake King : these are joined to- 
gether by a central or small narrow lake, assuming 
towards Lake Wellington the form of a river. There 
is a fourth lake, called Lake Reeve, between Lake 
Wellington and the sea, which also runs parallel to 
the coast-line for about thirty miles, opening into Lake 
King at its eastern extremity. These lakes afford a 
continuous inland navigation in a north-easterly direc- 
tion, from the western extremity of Lake Wellington 
to the north-eastern extremity of Lake King, of about 
eighty miles. The depth of water in mid-channel is 
twenty feet, and in some places this depth is maintained 
right across from land to land ; but in others there are 
shallows and banks on either side. The general outlet 
of all these lakes is a narrow channel opening into the 
Pacific, or what is called the Xinety-ruile Beach, to- 
wards Cape Howe, but impracticable for vessels. 

Into these lakes various rivers, all of which take 
their rise in the south-eastern face of the Snowy 
Mountains, or rather on the eastern side of the Divid- 
ing Range, which terminates in Wilson's Promontory, 
disembogue ; the Tanbean. Nicholson's River, and the 
Mitchell falling into Lake King : a creek called Pro- 
vidence Ponds falling into the central lake : and the 
Avon and Glengarry, or Latrobe River, falling into 



WESTERN PORT AND GIPPSLAND. 



225 



Lake Wellington. Of these rivers the Tanbean is 
navigable for ten miles from the lake ; the Mitchell for 
twenty, and the Glengarry for thirty. They have each, 
however, a bar carrying seven feet water at their 
mouths. The Glengarry is much the largest of the 
three, and forms the general receptacle of the streams 
that rise on the eastern side of the Dividing Range for 
nearly a hundred miles, as well as of those that rise on 
the northern side of the Coast Range. It has therefore 
many considerable tributaries,, of which the principal 
are the M'Alister and the Thomson ; and as all these 
rivers originate in lofty mountains, of which the highest 
peaks are covered with eternal snow, they are not mere 
torrents but perennial streams. 

There are three descriptions of land in this district — 
the first consisting of poor sandy soil and miserable 
scrub ; the second of open forest, forming good pasture 
land, and the third of land of the first quality for cul- 
tivation. Of the first description consists the country 
extending from Lake King towards Cape Howe, and 
the land generally along the sea coast. The higher 
mountains are also to be included in the same category, 
being for the most part covered with a dense scrub, 
growing on masses of disintegrated granite or sand. 
Of the second description consists the back country 
generally, towards the base of the mountains that hem 
in the district ; while the third description comprises 
the rich alluvial land within two or three miles of the 
rivers, and a belt of country generally along the lakes, 
varying from five to twenty miles in breadth, from the 
Tanbean river at the northern extremity of Lake King 
to Port Albert. Of this third description a large 
portion consists of beautiful rich alluvial fiats, unen- 
cumbered with timber and ready for the plough. The 
whole extent of this description of land cannot be less 
than five hundred square miles, or 320,000 acres, and 
it probably exceeds that quantity very considerably. 
The whole of this land possesses, moreover, the singu- 
lar quality, at least for Australia, of being quite close 
to navigable water. In short, the district of Gippsland 
is unquestionably one of the finest fields for an agricul- 

p 



226 



PHILLIP SL AND . 



tural population in the colony. From its vicinity to 
the Snowy Mountains and the Southern coast, it is 
blessed with abundance of rain ; and the climate, al- 
though mild and genial for a European constitution, is 
considerably colder than that of New South Wales. 
"The climate," says my informant, "I find rather 
severe in winter, after a residence of nearly forty years 
in warmer countries ; but I think it milder than that of 
Van Dieman's Land." "The lakes," adds the same 
gentleman, " are quite fresh in winter, and the rivers 
are always so ; but in the months of February and 
March," corresponding to August and September in 
Europe, " the lakes have been observed to be brackish, 
but the water is always fit for stock, and good water 
can be got at any place by sinking for it." 

" The country between the lake and Alberton, or 
Port Albert, is level, or so gently undulating that you 
can hardly observe any change of level : it is chiefly 
covered with timber ; and on the sandy ground stringy 
bark of large size abounds, with a great deal of wattle 
and light wood, and some gum. I would say no part 
of the colony is better adapted for railways, were the 
country settled, than from the lake to Alberton ; and 
the harbour there is safe and good for vessels drawing 
not more than thirteen feet water. There are many 
safe harbours in Corner Inlet, but they are of no avail, 
the country around it being totally useless, and likely 
to remain so for many generations to come — being 
chiefly salt marshes covered with samphire, and with 
no other sign of vegetation." 

" The present population is about 900 souls — I mean 
Europeans — and about three times that number of 
Aborigines. The latter are extremely shy, strong and 
active. The greater proportion of the settlers are 
Scotch ; a few English, and only two Irish. Many of 
the servants are Irish, but I think the chief of them 
are from the north ; as, when we had a meeting to get 
a Scotch clergyman, many of them readily subscribed. I 
would say fully half the population are Presbyterians." * 



* The Government never forwarded any of the Bounty Emi- 
grants to Gippsland. Some of the servants or labourers in the 



WESTERN PORT AXD GIPPSLAND. 



227 



" The rate of wages for shepherds and farm-labourers 
is about twenty pounds a-year, with a weekly ration 
of ten pounds of meat, ten pounds of flour, three ounces 
of tea, and a pound and a half of sugar : some give 
more, but generally this is the ration per man." 

" In the northern part of the district there is a great 
quantity of limestone of various kinds — some white, 
some bine and inclining to black. And on the banks 
of the Mitchell, about t wenty miles from the lake, there 
are large banks of oyster and other fossil shells, with a 
considerable body of earth over them, and only show- 
ing in the banks of the river on each side." 

" For my own part, although I have a large stock in 
the district, I would be glad to see it occupied by a 
respectable industrious people ; and I am convinced, if 
the Government would dispose of the land at its real 
value, few districts hold out fairer prospects of success 
to the industrious man ; but at the present rate, the 
sale of it is out of the question. The expense attend- 
ing settling on new ground distant from every neces- 
sary required, and subject to many disappointments 
and losses that persons accustomed to settled countries 
can have no idea of, is price enough for the land gen- 
erally. But the first settlers have all these disadvan- 
tages to contend with, and as they progress facilities 
are afforded to those who follow them, who too often 
reap all the benefit of the years of toil and privation of 
their unfortunate predecessors." 

For these interesting extracts, as well as for a con- 
siderable portion of the other information respecting 



district were engaged at home and carried out by their masters 
or employers ; others were hired either in Sydney or Melbourne, 
but the greater number in Hobart Town, Van Dieman's Land. 
The trade of the district has hitherto been chiefly with Hobart 
Town, and has consisted almost exclusively in the exportation of 
fat cattle for sale in Van Dieman's Land ; Mr. M'Leod having for 
some time had the contract for supplying the Government of that 
colony with fresh meat, which he did exclusively from Gipps- 
land. The pasture in Van Dieman's Land generally fails in 
winter as at home, from tbe greater severity of the climate, which 
is not the case on the mainland. 



228 



PHILLIP SLAXD, 



this important district, contained in the preceding pa- 
ragraphs. I am indebted to a valuable communication 
with which I was kindly favoured on the subject by mv 
friend, Archibald M ; Leod. Esq.. a gentleman original- 
ly from the Island of Skye. but for several years past 
a settler or Squatter, and an extensive proprietor of 
sheep and cattle, in Gippsland. Hr. M-Leod has been 
twenty-five years in the Australian Colonies — in the 
first instance in Van Dieman's Land, then in Mew 
South Wales, afterwards Government Superintendent 
of Agriculture in the Penal Settlement of Xortolk Is- 
land.* and finally in Gippsland. His opinion on such 
subjects as those on which he has written, must there- 
fore be of the highest value. From the early period at 
which Mr. M'Leod settled in Gippsland, and the state 
of comparative isolation from the whole civilized world 
in which the mere handful of people who were then in 
that distinct were compelled to live — maintaining their 
communications with Sydney, for instance, at long in- 
tervals, through Hobart Town. Van Dieman's Land, 
and paying three or four times the usual colonial price 
for every article of necessity, and for every service 
they required — he must necessarily have experienced 
the serious hardships, privations, and losses to which 
he so feelingly alludes ; and in such circumstances a 



* At the time when Mr. M'Leod held the office of Agricultural 
Superintendent at Norfolk Island, the famous New Zealand 
Chief, Heki, was for many months in that island, and lived almost 
as a member of Mr. M'L.'s. family. He had been induced to 
ceed thither with several of his tribe, by the Government of New 
South Wales, to instruct the Europeans at that Settlement in the 
native process of manufacturing the pkarmhm Umax, or New Zea- 
land Flax, the abundance of which on Norfolk Island formed the 
principal inducement to plant a colony there ; the British Depen- 
dencies in these regions being originally styled u The Colonies of 
Port Jackson and Norfolk Island." Heki exhibited remarkable 
intelligence, and took particular interest in the lesson? which Mr. 
M'Leod's children were then receiving ; but he never forgo: his 
dignity, letting the Europeans know that he was a : :;>.;, or 
gentleman, and not accustomed to werk like the inferior mem- 
bers of his tribe, with whom he appeared to associate very little. 



WESTERN POET AKD GIPPSLAND. 229 



moderate extent of land, coupled with the obligation to 
settle upon it, would certainly have been very dear to 
any man, even as a gift. But if any arrangement 
could be made to secure to the bona fide settler the 
benefits of a cheap and expeditious communication 
with a good colonial market — for this is the grand de- 
sideratum in all new countries — I am quite sure Mr. 
M k Leod would agree with me in thinking, that land 
of the first quality for cultivation in the district of 
Gippsland would be cheap enough even at a pound 
an acre, the present minimum price. 

Alberton, the proposed capital of Gippsland, is si- 
tuated on the left bank of the Albert River, the course 
of which, and the character of its mouth, will be suffi- 
ciently obvious from the accompanying map of the 
District. The town is proposed to extend easterly as 
far as the Tarra River, another of the streams of 
Gippsland, which approaches within two miles of the 
Albert, in that locality, but afterwards diverges from 
it, and pursues a tortuous course to the sea. Both 
rivers take their rise in the Coast Range, which is about 
twenty-live miles inland, and forms nearly a right angle 
with the Dividing Range. The distance of Alberton 
from the point where the road to the interior crosses 
the Glengarry River, is only about twenty-five miles ; 
and passing, as that road does, through a level country, 
it must be evident that a wooden railway along this 
line, with a small steamboat on the lakes, to run up 
the navigable rivers, would afford the future inhabit- 
ants of this district, at a comparatively small cost, an 
extent of inland communication of a superior charac- 
ter, quite unequalled in the colony. 

I have already noticed the peculiar adaptation of 
Port Albert for steam communication with Melbourne ; 
and in the event of a stream of emigration being di- 
rected from the mother-country to Western Port and 
Gippsland, as highly eligible portions of the territory 
of Phillipsland, nothing would tend so greatly to de- 
velop the vast resources of these districts, and to fa- 
cilitate their rapid and comfortable settlement, as the 



230 



PHILLIP SL AND . 



placing of a steamboat of from 100 to 200 tons on this 
course. Such a vessel could touch at Western Port 
for coals, passengers, and freight, both to and fro, and 
would thus maintain a regular, expeditious, and cheap 
communication between the capital and these two im- 
portant settlements, of which the capabilities are con^ 
fessedly so great, and the prospects so encouraging. 
The whole distance from the basin at Melbourne to 
Port Albert^ is about two hundred and twenty miles. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, AND THE OVERLAND ROUTE FROM SYDNEY 
TO MELBOURNE. 

Besides the regular monthly communication by the 
Shamrock steamboat, and the frequent trips of several 
fast-sailing vessels that trade to and fro between Syd- 
ney and Melbourne, there is now an overland mail be- 
tween the two Colonial Capitals twice a-week. I have 
made the journey three times overland by the mail — ■ 
twice from Melbourne to Sydney, in the years ] 843 
and 1845, and once from Sydney to Melbourne, in the 
month of January 1846 ; and as it may not be unin- 
teresting to the reader to learn something of the ge- 
neral character of the intervening country, even within 
the limits of the old convict-colony of Xew South 
TTales Proper, I shall take the liberty to booh him at 
Sydney for the whole distance, and carry him as ra- 
pidly as possible to Gundagai, on the Murrumbidgee 
River, where we shall again get within the proper li- 
mits of Phillipsland, and take it more easily. 

The overland mail for Melbourne leaves Sydney at 
five p.at. every Tuesday and Friday, and reaches its 
destination between seven and eight o'clock in the 
morning of the same days in the following week ; but 
as it travels right on to Yass, an inland town about 
200 miles from Sydney, and as I wished to perform 
that part of the journey by easier stages in daylight, 
in order to rest on the Lords-day, and celebrate divine 
service to the Scotsmen and other Presbyterians in the 
vicinity of Yass, I left Sydney two days before the 
Friday's mail to Melbourne, by the daily mail to Goul- 



232 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



burn ; being assured at the coach-office in Sydney that 
I should reach Yass, by a continuation of that mail, 
on Saturday evening. We started, therefore, from 
Sydney at five p.m. on Wednesday, the 14th of Jan- 
uary 1846 ; my agreement being to be taken up by the 
Port Phillip mail of the Friday following at Yass. 

For the first five miles the Great Southern Road from 
Sydney is the same as the Great Western Eoad across 
the Blue Mountains, and the frequent and handsome 
villas on either side of it proclaim the vicinity of a 
large and flourishing commercial city. For the next 
fifteen miles to Liverpool, the road lies through a thick 
forest of uninteresting trees, chiefly iron-bark, which 
the intrinsic value of the land, after it is cleared, will 
scarcely compensate for the trouble and expense of fell- 
ing and burning off ; except, perhaps, for the erection of 
a public-house on the way-side, with a large garden at- 
tached to it, and a paddock for bullocks. At all events, 
such houses are frequent along the road. 

The town of Liverpool, which is twenty miles from 
Sydney, was founded and named — rather absurdly I 
think — by Governor Macquarie. It is a dull, lifeless, 
stagnant sort of place, as different as possible from the 
great bustling commercial city, whose name it so am- 
bitiously bears. One is never disappointed in these 
Australian Colonies, on arriving at such a town as 
Parramatta, or Wollongong,or Jamberoo, or Berrima, or 
Gundagai, or any other town with an aboriginal name ; 
for as in all likelihood there is no other place of the 
same name on the face of the globe, there is no other 
town that one can have a right to compare it with. 
But when one goes to " Liverpool," or " Windsor," or 
" Richmond," forsooth ! and finds it a small insignifi- 
cant village, he cannot help saying to himself — 

0 what a falling off is there 1 

and the place actually looks much worse than it really 
is, simply from its unfortunate name. 

I confess I never had my classical ideas and asso- 
ciations so rudely broken in upon, as when, in travel- 



THE NuKTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



233 



ling by the steamboat up the beautiful Hudson River, 
from New York to the city of Troy^ the boat stopped 
successively at two paltry American towns, which I 
was told were called Borne and Athens! I did not feel 
at all disappointed with Troy ; for besides that we 
know much less of the original, the American edition 
of the city of Priam was a really respectable and thriv- 
ing city of 20,000 inhabitants — well planned, well built, 
and eminently prosperous as a place of trade, as may 
be supposed from the fact of its being at the time not 
more than thirty years old. But I felt absolutely of- 
fended at the sort of classical sacrilege which Jonathan 
had perpetrated upon the memory of the great cities 
of Rome and Athens, by giving their venerable names 
to his two insignificant villages on the Hudson. I ac- 
tually thought it had been done for the express pur- 
pose of lowering antiquity and the classics in the esti- 
mation of the young American, and teaching him to 
say, somewhat contemptuously — 

Urbem quam dicunt Romam, Meliboee, putavi 
Huic nostrae similem. 
" I guess, Mister, the city folks call Rome ain't half like this 
of our'n," 

without adding Stultus ego — " fool that I am/' — as 
the poet does. 

Besides, there is often a positive inconvenience in 
this system of Colonial nomenclature. For example, 
a letter containing a bank-note was put into the post; 
office at Sydney, addressed to somebody at Liverpool g 
but as the letter did not specify where Liverpool wao 
situated, it was thrown, in the hurry of business, intn 
the mail for England, where, after having arrived ie 
due time, and been refused by every person of the nam 
it bore in the great city of Liverpool, it was opened at 
the General Post Office in London, and found to be 
intended for some person in Liverpool in New South 
Wales, whom it reached at last after having first made 
the circuit of the globe. 

Insignificant, however, as it is, my earliest recollec- 
tions of New South Wales are indissolubly connected 



234 



PHILLIP SL AND. 



with this locality. On my first arrival in that colony 
in the year 1823, a brother of mine was in charge of 
the Commissariat at Liverpool, which was then a con- 
siderable depot both for convicts and troops. He oc- 
cupied a brick verandah cottage in the town, with a 
little plat of garden -ground, and a white gate in front ; 
his whole establishment consisting of a convict man- 
servant. The next cottage, exactly like it, was occu- 
pied by the officer in charge of the detachment at Li- 
verpool — Mr. M'Nab, of the 3d Regiment or Buffs, 
whose establishment consisted of his orderly, one of the 
soldiers of the regiment. Mr. M'Nab used to dine oc- 
casionally with my brother, and on one of my visits 
to perform divine service in the town, I was invited, 
along with my brother, to dine with Mr. M'Nab, who 
was a genuine warm-hearted Scotch Highlander. His 
orderly, however, had but recently arrived in the co- 
lony, and was not initiated at the time into the mys- 
tery of colonial cookery ; and, accordingly, when the 
piece of excellent colonial ration-beef which he had 
roasted for our dinner was uncovered on the table, it 
was found to be all alive ! There is a large fly in the 
colony which, in summer, is sure to alight upon fresh 
meat, especially when roasted, if not carefully covered, 
and to deposit instantaneously a numerous offspring of 
live maggots upon its surface. This was one of those 
accidents which are not uncommon in colonial life, even 
in the best-regulated establishments, and it only served 
to afford us a little amusement at the expense of the 
poor orderly, who easily supplied us with a substitute 
for the roast beef in " a cold collation." 

Mr. M 4 Nab was only an ensign at the time, although 
I believe the oldest in the British army. He had be- 
longed originally to the Scotch Brigade, a corps which 
was raised in the beginning of last century, during the 
wars of the great Marlborough, but which had always 
refused to take a particular number as one of the regi- 
ments of the British army. Towards the close of the 
last war, however, when all such corps were obliged to 
take a number, the Scotch Brigade, although one of 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



235 



the oldest Regiments in the service, had to take one of 
the highest numbers ; and when the army was reduced, 
after the general peace, it was consequently one of the 
first to be disbanded. Mr. M'Nab, however, had 
shortly before got into the service again, from half-pay ; 
but he was then still only an ensign. As one of the 
officers of the old Scotch Brigade, he still retained, as 
a cherished recollection of his former corps, part of its 
old silver plate which the officers had divided among 
themselves when it was finally broken up. 

All these recollections crowded into my memory as 
the mail drove rapidly past the two brick verandah 
cottages, with their little gardens and white gates in 
front, in the dull town of Liverpool. The reader may 
perhaps wish to know what has become of the four 
occupants by whom they were tenanted at the period 
I speak of — the two masters and the two men. My 
brother, therefore, died of an inflammatory fever about 
two years thereafter, during my own absence in Eng- 
land. Mr. M'Nab went to India with his regiment, 
where he attained the rank of Captain : he then re- 
turned to England, sold out, and, having a taste for 
agricultural pursuits, took a farm near Callendar in 
Scotland — his native place — where he died a few years 
ago, much respected. The orderly, I have reason to 
believe, fell a victim to the climate in India, where the 
Regiment was nearly annihilated ; and my brother's 
convict servant, having obtained his freedom on the 
expiration of his period of transportation, has for many 
years past been one of the most respectable of the 
class of emancipists in New South Wales — the father 
of a reputable family, and enjoying the reputation of 
considerable wealth. Apropos — the reader may per- 
haps think these first stages of the Overland Route, 
and the colonial recollections which they have called 
up, somewhat tedious ; and perhaps they are so : but 
as I am at this moment recording these particulars on 
shipboard, in the cold bleak month of December, and 
after a fortnight of incessant and violent gales of north- 
easterly wind, right in our teeth, off the entrance of 



236 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



the British Channel, I confess the very idea of travel- 
ling at midsummer in the sunny land of New South 
Wales has something in it so peculiarly pleasing, amid 
the dreariness of this wintry sea, that it has almost 
made me forget how very great a distance we have yet 
to travel together. 

The country improves greatly after passing Liver- 
pool, and it has quite an English aspect, being finely 
disposed into hill and dale, in the neighbourhood of 
Campbelltown — a small inland town, also formed by 
Governor Macquarie, thirty- three miles from Sydney, 
where the daily mail to Goulburn rests for the night. 

The mail started again about six o'clock in the morn- 
ing of the 15th — the course to the village of Camden 
and the Cowpasture River, which separates the coun- 
ty of Cumberland from that of Camden, being through 
a beautifully picturesque and fertile country of trap 
formation, with a rapidly increasing agricultural popu- 
lation. To the right of the road is the estate of Wi 
Howe, Esq., J.P., of Glenlee, w^ith a handsome man- 
sion built of stone overlooking the fertile valley of the 
Cowpasture River. The extensive estate of the late 
John Macarthur, Esq. — the patriarch of Australian 
wool — commences at that River, of which it occupies 
the Camden side for many miles. There are fine allu- 
vial plains on the banks of the river, and fine grassy 
hills, admirably adapted for sheep pasture, for a great 
distance behind. 

Camden is ten miles from Campbelltown ; the next 
stage, to Picton, where the mail stops for breakfast, 
being seventeen miles. This part of the road crosses the 
Razorback mountain — a steep ascent of nearly 1200 
feet high. It is very appropriately named ; the ridge, 
along which the road is carried for some distance, when 
the summit level has been attained, being almost as 
narrow as Mahomet's Bridge, across which none but a 
true Mussulman can pass w T ith safety. The basis of 
the Razorback mountain is trap or whinstone, and the 
rich grass of the surrounding hills and valleys proclaims 
the fact. The situation of the town, or rather town- 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



237 



ship, of Picton, which adjoins the beautifully pictur- 
esque estates of Major Antill, J. P. — an old and highly 
respectable colonist, who was Major of Brigade in IS ew 
South Wales under Governor Macquarie — and of the 
late George Harper, Esq. of Abbotsford, reminded me 
strongly of that of Stuttgardt in the kingdom of TTirtem- 
burg, being a deep hollow almost completely surrounded 
by pretty steep hills. It was such a picturesque situa- 
tion that suggested to the royal poet of Judah the 
beautiful image in the 125th psalm, " As the mountains 
are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about 
his people from henceforth even for ever" And I have no 
doubt that if there were an equally numerous and in- 
dustrious population to turn them to account, the sides 
of these Australian hills would very soon exhibit as 
fine a vintage as those around the ancient Jewish city 
or the modern German capital, 

After passing a few more whinstone hills beyond 
Picton, this formation suddenly disappears, and is suc- 
ceeded by a miserable sandstone country, which is tra- 
versed by the Bargo River and called Bargo Brush, 
Beyond this, however, the trap again appears as the 
principal constituent of the Mittagong Range of moun- 
tains, and the country improves rapidly towards the 
town of Berrima, to which there is a very gentle ascent 
for many miles. 

Berrima, the county-town of Camden, where the 
daily mail rests for the night, is eighty miles from 
Sydney, and is situated, somewhat like Picton, in a 
hollow, on the Berrima River. It is 2096 feet above 
the level of the sea, and the climate is sensibly different 
from that of the low country towards the coast. The 
gooseberry and currant grow here, which they do not 
at Sydney, while the potato and the apple acquire a 
sort of European character w^hich they rarely exhibit 
on the coast ; but the maize and the orange, which 
succeed well below, refuse to grow in this higher region. 
The children also about Berrima have fine ruddy faces 
as at home, unlike the pale faces of Sydney and the 
low^ country generally. 



238 



PHILLIP SLAXD. 



Although the country a few miles from Berrirna is 
of a superior character, it is very indifferent for a con- 
siderable distance around the town ; and I confess, not- 
withstanding the undeniable fact of its possessing an 
abundant supply of good water, I was at a loss to know 
why a town should have been placed in such a locality 
at all. In a thinly peopled country without manufac- 
tures, it appears to me that the first requisite in fixing 
the site of an inland town is plenty of good land in the 
neighbourhood, and the second, plenty of good water. 
In most cases the water can be brought to the land, if 
it is not naturally abundant in the immediate vicinity, 
with comparatively little trouble or expense ; but the 
land can never be brought to the water. Terra finna 
and " running water" are phrases that have much 
meaning in this point of view, and they ought not to 
be forgotten on such an occasion as the fixing of a site 
for an inland town. Xo forcing on the part of a Go- 
vernment can create a town in an improperly chosen 
locality, and the principal part of the population that 
will collect in such a place will in all likelihood consist 
of publicans of an inferior character, and the other use- 
less lazy drones, that contrive to pick up a subsistence 
in some way or other along the highways of the colony, 
by preying upon honester people who are travelling to 
and fro in the way of their respective callings. This 
is remarkably the case in Berrima ; for although the 
Government have expended an enormous amount in 
the erection of a gaol and a court-house in the so-called 
town — where no such buildings ought ever to have 
been erected — the population consists chiefly of a few 
publicans and their dependents, who seem to have 
nothing to do but to look out for the next carriage or 
bullock-dray that may be passing along the road. I 
have long been of opinion that the establishment of 
railways in Xew South TTales — where the extent of 
highway of one kind or another in proportion to the 
population will always be much greater than in 
England, in consequence of the absolutely sterile cha- 
racter of a large proportion of the surface — will, in addi- 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. j 239 

tion to its economical advantages, have a moral effect 
in that colony which it cannot have at home ; for it 
will disperse those indolent people who are now con- 
gregated in a number of petty colonial towns on the 
waysides, and send them about their proper business, 
either to tend sheep and cattle, or to cultivate the land. 

About seven miles from Berrima, at a considerable 
rivulet called by the horrid name of Black Bob's Creek, 
there is a pretty large extent of really good land and 
plenty of excellent water ; and a fe*f miles off there is 
a fine tract of agricultural country at a place called 
Bong Bong. In such localities villages and towns rise 
up naturally and without forcing on the part of the 
Government, and there is accordingly a considerable 
agricultural population in both of these vicinities. 
Seventeen miles from Berrima — a distance which the 
Government seem to consider proper for the site of 
another town (independently, however, of the physical 
character and the wants of the neighbourhood) — there 
is accordingly another skeleton of a town, called Mo- 
rumba, in which building-allotments are to be had at 
the alluringly low rate of from five to ten pounds an 
acre. Doubtless the land is of no intrinsic value ; but 
it can grow a few public-houses and a blacksmith's shop 
or two until the introduction of railway communication 
shall have made an entirely new economical division of 
the country. The mail halts for breakfast at Morumba. 

At twenty-eight miles from Berrima is Marulan 
(pronounced Maroolan, with the accent on the second 
syllable), another incipient town in a somewhat better 
locality, as it is situated at the turning-off of the road 
to Bungonia, Braidwood, and Queanbeyan ; in which 
direction there is a large extent of very superior coun- 
try both for cultivation and grazing, situated on the 
high table land behind the Coast Eange of mountains. 
The road to these districts turns off to the left or east- 
ward — the road to Goulburn being to the right or 
westward. 

The country from Marulan to Goulburn is for the 
most part sterile and uninteresting ; but the scene im- 



240 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



proves wonderfully on reaching the heights that look 
down upon the plain of Goulburn, which is really a 
fine tract of country, although in my opinion by no 
means equal to the Western Plains of Phillipsland. 
The plain of Goulburn is fifteen miles long, with an 
average breadth of eight miles. It has evidently been 
at some former period the bed of a lake, and the ridges 
that run out into it from either side have quite the 
character and appearance of headlands. The stones 
with which it is covered in particular spots, or that are 
dug up in making excavations to a great depth, consist 
of quartz pebbles, rolled stones and shingle, as if from 
a sea-beach or the bed of a river. It is remarkable, 
indeed, that there is a series of plains, of this peculiar 
character, some more and others less of alluvial forma- 
tion, along a vast extent of the mountainous portion of 
Eastern Australia ; the general elevation of these plains 
being about two thousand feet above the level of the 
sea. For example, there are the Goulburn and Bread- 
albane Plains to the south, the Bathurst Plains to the 
west, and the Darling Downs to the north ; the last 
of which series of plains is a hundred and twenty miles 
long, and from thirty to forty in breadth. 

The town of Goulburn, which is situated on the 
plain, or, as it is called, plains, is 120 miles from Syd- 
ney. It is the capital of the county of Argyle, and is 
admirably situated ; being in the centre both of an ex- 
tensive agricultural, and of a much more extensive 
pastoral, country. It is beyond all comparison the finest 
town in the interior of New South Wales, and the 
buildings generally are of a much more substantial 
character, as well as of a much finer appearance, than 
those of most inland colonial towns. It is a busy, 
bustling place for its size — quite a contrast to Berrima. 
And yet, because the gaol and court-house have been 
erected at the latter town, the people of this extensive 
and populous district must travel forty miles from the 
chief town of their own vicinity to a mere uninhabited 
locality, which the Government choose to call a town, 
for all judicial business ! Truly, if that " young man," 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



241 



whom a certain prime minister in France desired, when 
setting out upon his travels, to " see with how little 
wisdom the world is governed,' 5 should happen to visit 
New South Wales, he will unquestionably discover that 
the stock-in-trade of that article, on which the Colonial 
Government have hitherto been doing business in their 
own small way, has been extremely limited. 

There is an extensive steam flour-mill, with an en- 
gine of 14 horse-power, and a brewery on a large scale, 
also carrying a steam- engine., in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of G-oulburn — both the property of T. Bradley, 
Esq., a native of the colony and lately member of the 
Legislative Council for the county of Argyle. The inns 
in the town are quite splendid for the interior of a colony. 
I took up my quarters during my stay, which proved 
to be longer than I anticipated, at the Salutation Inn, 
an extensive and superior establishment of the kind, 
the property of Mr. Thomas Brodie, a respectable 
Scotsman who arrived in the colony as one of a com- 
pany of Scotch mechanics whom I carried out in the 
year 1831 to erect certain buildings for an Academical 
Institution or College in Sydney. After fulfilling his 
engagement, Mr. Brodie settled in G-oulburn, where 
he amassed considerable property in the way of his 
business, and where he built the large and well-con- 
ducted house of accommodation for travellers which he 
has latterly found it expedient to retain in his own 
hands, I had no bill to pay here, having experienced a 
cordial welcome from Mr. Brodie, who insisted that, as 
far as he was concerned, I should go " Scot free," for 
Aulcl Langsyne. 

There is an effort making in the colony at present 
for the construction of a railway between Sydney and 
Goulburn, which I consider the most promising line in 
the country. The advantages of such a mode of com- 
munication for this district will be incalculably great. 
It will open up an immense extent of grain-growing 
country in these elevated regions of the first quality 
for cultivation. It will afford the rapidly increasing 
population of the southern country generally a cheap 

Q 



242 



PHILLIP SL AND ■ 



and expeditious mode of transport both for agricultural 
and for pastoral produce to the colonial capital. And 
by breaking up and destroying those nests of depreda- 
tion and dissipation — the low public-houses on the 
wayside, to which the bullock-drivers at present re- 
sort on their journeys with goods or produce either up 
or down — it will greatly promote the moral welfare 
and advancement of the colony. It has been ascer- 
tained that there are no insurmountable physical diffi- 
culties on the line, and all practical men in the colony 
are of opinion that the indigenous timber of the country 
will answer the purpose perfectly without the addition 
of iron rails. As a specimen of the extent of traffic 
along the pi esent road. Mr. Bradley alone pays upwards 
of £700 a-year for carnage to and from Sydney. 

The Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Koman Ca- 
tholics have all places of worship of a creditable ap- 
pearance for their respective communions, in and around 
Goulburn. The Presbyterian minister of the district, 
the Rev. W- Hamilton, has latterly acquired some no- 
toriety among the members of his own communion in 
the colony, for having discovered that i( the well- 
watered plain" of Goulburn, which is u even as the 
garden of the Lord — like the land of Egypt, as thou 
comest unto Zcar," — is exactly half-way between the 
Free and the Established Churches of Scotland ; being 
as nearly as possible 15,000 miles from each, and like 
Gunning, on the read to Yass, a very suitable place 
for a Hali-way House of accommodation for all travel- 
lers to and fro, between the two Churches For when 
it had become necessary to make some declaration as 
to which of these Ecclesiastical bodies he and his 
brethren in the colony belonged to, this clerical middle- 
man submitted to his brethren, in the year 1844, a 
series of Resolutions which were adopted with approba- 
tion by a large majority, and subsequently ratified and 
confirmed in the year 1845, offering the right hand of 
fellowship to the State Church, and the left to the Free, 
and declaring that they were all exactly half-way be- 
tween the two "termini" of that Ecclesiastical "line." 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



243 



The men had, for the most part, made loud and frequent 
professions of strong attachment to the Free Church 
party so long as the latter was safe within the portals 
of*the State Church ; but as soon as the famous Dis- 
ruption had taken the whole civilized world by surprise, 
and filled all honest men, whether they had taken part 
in it or not, with astonishment and admiration, 

Conticuere omnes, intentique ora tenebant, 

" They were all struck dumb, and looked as if they had 
just got their ' sentence for life.'" The reader will 
scarcely require to be told, that both the Free and the 
State Churches received the proffer of a divided heart 
and divided affections, which the Goulburn sage and 
his brethren made them respectively, with the scornful 
rejection which it merited ; and knowing, if he does, 
the state of feeling at home, he will only be amazed to 
think that men of the standing of ministers of religion 
could be possessed of the extreme folly and infatuation 
to suppose that such an offer could possibly meet with 
a different reception. But what else could reasonably 
be expected from the discreditable practice that has 
prevailed systematically in certain quarters for upwards 
of a century past — I mean that of sending out to the 
colonies in the shape of teachers of religion, nothing 
above the level of drivelling incapacity ? It is this that 
is giving both Popery and Puseyism — -filia digna tali 
matre — their threatened ascendency in the Australian 
Colonies. 

Friday the 16th, the day of our drive from Berrirua 
to Goulburn, which we reached about two o'clock, p.3i.. 
was an unusually hot day. The wind, which was 
blowing from the north-westward, like a stream of 
heated air from a baker's oven, was charged occasion- 
ally with clouds of dust ; and the sun glared so fiercely 
down upon our open vehicle, that although I was quite 
well on leaving Marulan, I had experienced a com- 
plete prostration of strength, and felt seriously ill on 
reaching Goulburn. This feeling was not a little ag- 
gravated on learning that the Daily conveyance to Yass, 



244 



PHILLIP SL AND. 



which, I had been assured in Sydney, was actually 
running, had not yet started, although it was to do so 
in a few days thereafter. I proposed at first to pro- 
ceed to Yass on horseback, as my object in leaving 
Sydney so long before the mail was to reach that 
point on Saturday, and to preach there on Sabbath ; 
but I soon found that to ride sixty miles in such scorch- 
ing weather, in the state of extreme weakness to which 
I had been suddenly reduced by exposure to the burn- 
ing sun, was out of the question, and I had therefore to 
remain at Mr. Brodie's Inn till the Friday's mail from 
Sydney reached Goulbum, which it did at ten o'clock, 
p.m. on Saturday. I could not indeed hare proceeded 
any sooner in any circumstances, for I was quite un- 
able to move out of the inn till after sun-set on Satur- 
day evening. 

The mail started at eleven, p.m. on Saturday night, 
and as an Irish inn-keeper at Yass, who had some con- 
cern in the mail, happened to be a passenger, I signi- 
fied to him my desire to reach Yass as early as pos- 
sible, that I might be there in time for divine service ; 
and being an excellent driver, and an obliging man, 
he very kindly took the reins himself, and brought us 
in about two hours before the usual time. 

On reaching the extremity of the Goulburn Plains, 
the road crosses a ridge of rather indifferent forest-land, 
of about eight miles across. This ridge separates the 
Goulburn Plains from the Breadalbane Plains, which 
are not quite so extensive as the former, but of the 
same character. There is a fine tract of pastoral 
country around these plains ; but as their elevation is 
not less than 2278 feet above the level of the sea, and 
as they terminate to the south-westward in an exten- 
sive swamp which throws up a sort of misty exhalation 
during the night, I found the cold bitter and piercing 
in the extreme, although it was the 17th of January, 
the hottest season of the year. 

The first stage on this part of the course is to Mud- 
billy, or Millbank, eighteen miles. It is a fine open 
pastoral country, as I can testify from having seen it 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



245 



before in daylight. The next stage to Gunning is 
fourteen miles. Gunning consists of a fine flat of con- 
siderable extent, very suitable for growing wheat, bar- 
ley, oats, potatoes, and fruit of the British varieties, 
and surrounded by a tract of grazing country of rather 
inferior character. It forms the site of a Village Re- 
serve, and it is well situated for the purpose, being 
nearly half-way between Goulburn and Yass. Gun- 
ning appears to be on the same level as Breadalbane 
Plains, and the cold during the night, even in the 
midst of summer, on these elevated levels, is intense. 
I was shivering and benumbed when we reached the 
inn in the grey twilight, and a large fire which was 
kindled immediately on the hearth was most accept- 
able. 

From Gunning to Yass, a distance of twenty-eight 
miles, the country is generally uninteresting, but afford- 
ing good pasture in many places. Towards Yass 
Plains, there is a rapid descent from the higher level 
of perhaps from 800 to 1000 feet; for the Yass River, 
which is not much below the level of the plains ad- 
joining it, is only 1311 feet above the ocean level. 

The Yass Plains have a beautiful appearance from 
the heights that bound them in the direction of Goul- 
burn. They are, properly speaking, rather downs than 
plains ; the country for a great distance around being 
disposed into fine grassy hills, thinly covered with 
wood, and fertile vales clear of timber. The stones on 
these plains have the same rounded water-worn ap- 
pearance as those on the plains at Goulburn, and evi- 
dently from the same cause — their having been sub- 
jected, in some former condition of the surrounding 
country, to the action of running water. 

Within a mile or two of Yass, on the Sydney side, 
are the residences of Henry and Cornelius O'Brien, 
. Esqs., J.P., and of Hamilton Hume, Esq., J.P. They 
are all handsome cottages, with splendid gardens at- 
tached ; particularly that of Mr. H. O'Brien, whose 
grounds are very tastefully laid out. Mr. Henry 
O'Brien is in two very important respects one of the 



246 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



patriarchs of Australia — he is the father of Squatting, 
and also of Boiling-down, two most prominent depart- 
ments in the rural economy of that country. Mr. O'B. 
arrived in New South Wales from India, about twenty- 
five years ago ; and his uncle, who was then a mer- 
chant, and an extensive proprietor in the colony, gave 
him some sheep and cattle, I believe on credit, to be- 
gin the world with in Australia. With these, and the 
convict-servants he required to attend them, Mr. 
O'Brien struck out far beyond the settled districts of 
the colony at the time, and sat down on the beautiful 
plains of Yass, where he erected his bush-hut, culti- 
vated as much land as w r as necessary to afford grain, 
potatoes, and vegetables for his establishment, and re- 
mained in the comparative isolation of the great Aus- 
tralian wilderness — not like Daniel Boon, the American 
squatter and misanthrope, till civilization came up with 
him, and drove him farther back into the woods — but 
till his flocks and herds had increased to such num- 
bers, that he could return to society as wealthy as the 
patriarch Job. Mr. O'Brien is now an extensive landed 
proprietor at Yass, and his flocks and herds roam over 
a hundred grassy hills in the distance ; but his fame 
as an Australian colonist consists, like that of the an- 
tediluvian patriarch Jabal, in being " the father of 
such as dwell in tents," or bark-huts, " and of such 
as have cattle" and sheep beyond the boundaries. 

Like every body else, however, whose wealth con- 
sisted chiefly in stock, Mr. O'Brien felt the pressure 
of the times in the gloomy period of 1843, when sheep 
and cattle had fallen so low as to be scarcely worth 
driving to market ; and casting about for a remedy, it 
struck him that the tallow of the animals, if extracted 
from the carcass, would realize much more in the 
English market than the sheep and cattle themselves 
in the colony. Hence the process of " boiling-down/* 
which Mr. O'Brien first practised, and of which he 
taught the colony the importance, and w r hich, more- 
over, being discovered as it was at that critical mo- 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 247 



merit, saved not a few of its most respectable inhabit- 
ants from utter ruin. 

The following is the quantity of tallow exported 
from New South Wales, including Port Phillip, during 
the following years : — 

Cwt. Qrs. Lbs. 

1844. -56,609 2 7 

1845. -71,995 0 0 

The practice of boiling-down consists in throwing 
the entire carcass of the sheep or bullock to be boiled 
down, with the exception of the hind legs, into a large 
boiler or vat ; in wmich, either with or without the pro- 
cess of steaming, the entire fat or tallow in the car- 
cass is extracted by the application of heat, and re- 
ceived into casks, and shipped for London. The hind 
legs contain comparatively little tallow, and are sold 
either by weight, or at so much each ; and so vast has 
been the number of sheep and cattle subjected to this 
process in the colony of late years, that hind legs of 
the very best mutton have been retailed for months 
together in some of the colonial inland towns, at a 
half-penny a pound ! By this means, although there 
has been a lamentable waste of animal food, which, 
however, the thin population of the country is quite 
unable to consume, a very fair minimum price has 
been established for sheep and cattle in the colony — 
a matter of the utmost consequence to the Colonial 
Stockholder. The minimum for sheep, subjected to 
this process in Phillipsland, is five shillings, and I 
have mentioned an instance in wmich the hides and 
tallow alone of cattle boiled-down in that district, rea- 
lized £3, 12s. per head in the London market. The 
importance of this discovery to the Colonial Squatters 
w T ill be understood, when I add, that sheep w^ere often 
sold before for eighteen pence, or a shilling a head. 
Nay, they have even been sold for sixpence a head, 
when levied upon, and sold for quitrent, to the utter 
ruin of the oppressed colonist, by the paternal govern- 
ment of Sir George Gipps ! 

As a real benefactor of his country, Mr. O'Brien has, as 



248 



PHILLIP SL A XD . 



yet, received no such mark of gratitude from the colonial 
public as his services to the colonists of Australia, in 
these two important particulars, richly merit. The 
practice of deifying men for important services to so- 
ciety, either real or imaginary, has very properly, in- 
deed, gone out of fashion in the civilized world, ex- 
cept, perhaps, in the communion to which Mr. O'Brien 
belongs ; and sure I am it has often been resorted to 
in that communion as a reward for services to society 
of a far more questionable character than those which 
have been rendered to the whole Australian commu- 
nity by that gentleman. But in sober earnest, Mr. 
O'Brien richly deserves either a statue or a civic crown, 
now that the practice of making grants of land (which 
would perhaps be as acceptable as either) has been 
discontinued by authority. 

I stopped a short time at Mr. Henry O'Brien's on 
my return overland from Port Phillip in 1843, imme- 
diately after his discovery of the boiling-down process, 
and afterwards at his brother's on my return overland 
in 1845 ; and from both, I am happy to add, I expe- 
rienced a cordial reception. I need not inform the 
reader from what part of the United Kingdom these 
gentlemen originally came ; for in the words of a Latin 
poet who "flourished since the Augustan age, — 

Per Mac et 0 Hibernos dignoscere posses. 

On passing the gate of the avenue that leads up to 
the residence of Mr. Hamilton Hume, a Scotchman 
belonging to Yass, who happened to be returning home 
by the mail, volunteered to be the bearer of a message 
from me to that gentleman, requesting that he would 
have the goodness, as one of the Magistrates of the 
district, to grant me the use of the Court House, to 
perform divine service to such of the Presbyterians of 
the neighbourhood as could be informed beforehand 
of the arrival of a minister of their communion, at 
twelve o'clock. Mr. Hume politely acceded to my 
request, and promised to attend himself ; which he did 
accordingly, along with a friend who happened to be 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



249 



staying with him. Mr. Hume is a native of the colony, 
but of North of Ireland and Presbyterian parentage; 
and the reader will doubtless feel a greater interest in 
this gentleman, when I add, that he was the fellow- 
traveller and companion of Captain Hovell, in their 
famous overland journey of discovery to Port Phillip 
in 1825. 

It was ten o'clock before we reached Yass ; but mj* 
fellow-traveller by the mail having undertaken to in- 
form the few Scotch and other Presbyterians of the 
vicinity, that there would be service at twelve, a con- 
gregation of upwards of forty persons had assembled 
at that time in the Court House. It was as large a 
number as I could expect in such circumstances, in so 
small a place. There is a considerable number of 
Scotch and North of Ireland Presbyterians, settled as 
small farmers about ten or twelve miles off, on the 
Murrumbidgee River, a fair proportion of whom, I was 
informed, would gladly have attended, if intimation 
could have been given them on the day previous ; but 
this was unfortunately impracticable. Yass is a very 
important central station, as there is a large and rapid- 
ly increasing population, including many Scotch and 
other Presbyterian families, within a circuit of twenty 
or thirty miles ; and I was happy to find, that my ra- 
pid visit had awakened among the latter an earnest 
desire to have a minister of their own communion — 
not a Half- Way-House man, of course — settled in that 
part of the territory. 

The passage of Scripture on which I founded my 
address, (of which I shall take the liberty to subjoin 
the following outline,) to the extempore congregation 
at Yass, was Rom. vi. 23. The wages of sin is death ; 
but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. 

Man, I observed, as an intelligent and rational 
creature, designed by his Creator to exist for ever, has 
been divinely placed in this present world under a pe- 
culiar constitution or law ; and this law of our being 
is the Moral Law, or law of the Ten Commandments — 



250 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



that law which God himself proclaimed to ancient Is- 
rael amid the thunders and the lightnings of Sinai, and 
which he has evidently written on the hearts of man- 
kind everywhere, as Conscience, his own faithful and 
true witness within us, bears ample testimony. Now 
this law of God establishes a standard of duty on the 
one hand, and issues a series of prohibitions on the 
other ; and " sin is any want of conformity unto, or 
transgression of this law of God." 

This introduction was followed by a rapid sketch of 
the duties required, and the sins forbidden in this law 
of God ; which was summed up in a direct appeal to 
the consciences of those present, as to whether they 
could individually lay their hands upon their hearts, 
and solemnly declare that they had uniformly kept 
this law — Avhether they could plead not guilty of the 
sins which it forbids before the Searcher of Hearts. 
And it was shown at the same time, that the voice of 
Conscience was in perfect accordance with the declara- 
tions of Holy Scripture, and the universal experience 
of men, viz. — that all have sinned and come short of the 
glory of God; that all flesh have corrupted their ivays; 
that the imaginations of the thoughts of men's hearts are 
only evil contviually, and that there is none righteous, no, 
not one. For all ive like sheep have gone astray, and have 
turned evei^y one to his own v:ay. 

Yass is peculiarly a pastoral district of country, and 
this last passage of Scripture accordingly suggested an 
appropriate illustration of the manner in which all 
mankind had successively gone astray from God ; for 
as Adam, the first of the human family, had gone astray 
from under the hand or guidance of the Good Shep- 
herd, so each individual of that vast family had fol- 
lowed him successively, like a flock of sheep — each 
sinning, as soon as he becomes capable of sinning, after 
the similitude of Adams first transgression. It also sug- 
gested the hopelessness of man's return to God by any 
self- originated efforts ; for as it was utterly hopeless 
that a flock of sheep which had gone astray from the 
shepherd, and was dispersed over the surrounding hills 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 251 

and valleys, should again assemble of its own accord 
and return to its proper fold, so it was equally hopeless 
that any of the race of man who had successively gone 
astray after the example of their father, Adam, should 
ever return to God by any efforts of their own. 

Now, the wages of sin is death ; and as death in this 
first clause of the text is opposed to life in the following 
clause, and must consequently have an equally exten- 
sive meaning, it must signify not only the death of the 
body, but the death of the soul — a death of which 
eternity alone can be the measure and duration — im- 
plying not the extinction of man's sentient being, but 
the utter extinction of his happiness ; misery inconceiv- 
able and eternal ; the ivorm that dieth not and the fire 
that never shall be quenched. 

In the interior of the Australian colonies, society 
consists entirely of masters and servants, of employers 
and employed. This is a state of things that could not 
be overlooked in explaining the word u wages," as ap- 
plied to " death." That word, it was shown, accord- 
ingly, evidently implied work or service and its stipu- 
lated hire or equivalent : it implied, moreover, a period 
during which this work was to be performed, during 
which this service w^as to last, and a day of fearful 
reckoning when the long account would be settled and 
the hire or wages paid to the uttermost farthing. For 
God is not a man that he should lie or deceive the hire- 
ling of his wages. He who, during his life's short day, 
deliberately works the work of sin, will not fail of his 
payment, when the night of death cometh when no man can 
ivork ; for as the wages of sin — the divinely appointed 
wages — is death, these wages will assuredly be paid, 
first in the death of the body, and afterwards in a 
catastrophe infinitely more awful and tremendous, and 
of which that death is only the prelude and the earnest 
— the death eternal of the soul. 

But God, who is not only a just God, but a Saviour, 
has been pleased, in his infinite mercy, to place man- 
kind under a different constitution from that of the 
law, which worketh death ; I mean the constitution of 



252 



PHILLIP SL AND . 



the Gospel, which worketh life. For God so loved the 
world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 
Yes ! when there was no eye to pity and no hand to 
save, Christ came, being made of a woman, made under 
the law, that he might redeem them that were under 
the law, by giving his life a ransom for many. For 
he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised 
for our iniquities, because the Lord had laid on Him 
the iniquities of us all. It was then shown that the 
incarnation and obedience, the sufferings and the death 
of Christ, as an atonement for the sins of men, consti- 
tute the grand distinguishing feature of Christianity, 
and form the channel of all spiritual blessings to the 
children of men. It is this, in short, that, like Jacob's 
ladder, re-establishes the communication between 
heaven and earth, which our sins had interrupted and 
broken off, and that renders it possible for the God of 
truth to bestow his unspeakable gift, eternal life, on 
sinners of men. 

Eternal life, it was then shown, is a scriptural ex- 
pression signifying not only deliverance from death, 
which is the wages of sin and the curse threatened in 
the law, but happiness inconceivable and everlasting ; 
and this eternal life is declared in the text to be the 
gift of God. 

The attention of the audience was then directed to 
the evident and striking contrast between the language 
made use of in the first clause of the text, as compared 
with that employed in the second. In the former, sin 
is spoken of as a work or service, of which death is the 
righteous equivalent or stipulated wages ; but there is 
no work or service mentioned in the latter, of which 
eternal life is the equivalent or wages — for this evident 
reason, that there is no work or service which can pos- 
sibly be performed by sinful man that can have any 
conceivable proportion, as an equivalent, to eternal life. 
It is entirely the gift of God. 

Now, it is of the essence of a gift that it be free and 
unconditional — free, that is not given by constraint ; 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



253 



unconditional, that is unaccompanied with any stipula- 
tion, either expressed or understood, for an equivalent 
or return. The work of man's redemption is entirely 
the work of Christ; and like all the other works of that 
Almighty Architect, by whom, we are told in the Gos- 
pels, all things were made, it is perfect and complete, 
and requires no supplement or addition on the part of 
man. 

But how are we to be made partakers of this un- 
speakable gift of God, eternal life ? Why, simply by 
humbly receiving it at the hand of the Almighty Giver 
— simply by receiving it on the word of Him who 
cannot lie. The act of receiving this unspeakable gift 
of God is styled in Scripture, Faith, or believing in 
Jesus Christ. But as this theological term might not 
be sufficiently intelligible to all present, I proposed to 
illustrate its meaning by a familiar example. They 
were all familiar, therefore, with the case of a man 
bitten by a snake ; and they would probably recollect 
that when the children of Israel were divinely led from 
the land of Egypt to the promised land, through a 
tract of desert country similar to many extensive tracts 
in the interior of Australia, they were on one occasion 
visited with serpents or snakes, of a peculiarly veno- 
mous character, as a punishment from God for their 
disobedience and rebellion. These serpents were of a 
fiery-red colour, and they sprang upon their victims as 
if they had had wings ; and many of the people died 
under their deadly poison. The suffering occasioned 
by this visitation at length led them to repentance, 
and God was pleased, in answer to their prayer 
and cry for deliverance, to command his servant 
Moses to erect a brazen serpent on a pole in the midst 
of the camp, and to proclaim to the people that whoso- 
ever thereafter should be bitten by one of these fiery 
flying serpents, and should look to the serpent erected 
on the pole, should instantly be healed. 

Figure to yourselves, therefore, the case of an 
Israelite bitten by one of these venomous reptiles in 
the outskirts of the camp immediately after this pro- 



254 



PHILLIPSL AND, 



clamation had been issued to the host of Israel. The 
poison has already reached his vitals ; his blood stag- 
nates in his veins, and his pulse beats slowly as if it 
would beat its last ; a deadly lethargy steals over his 
frame ; his pallid countenance exhibits the ghastliness 
of approaching dissolution, and his eye is fixed in the 
very glare of death. But his afflicted relatives have 
heard of fhe divine proclamation, and they crowd 
anxiously around the dying man and carry him forth 
on his couch to the nearest part of the camp from 
which the mysterious symbol can be seen from afar ; 
and on reaching the spot they eagerly direct his eye 
towards it with anxious apprehension, saying, "Oh, my 
father," or " Oh, my husband," or " Oh, my child, be- 
hold the symbol of deliverance and live." And no 
sooner does the dying man catch a glimpse of that 
mysterious symbol than the tide of life flows afresh in 
its accustomed channels, and his eye recovers its wonted 
lustre, and the glow of health returns to his ghastly 
countenance, and he springs up in renovated strength 
and vigour, giving glory to the God of Israel. 

Now, as that brazen serpent was a type or emblem 
of the Lord Jesus Christ, so the dying Israelite is 
equally a type or emblem of every son or daughter of 
Adam who believes in Him and is converted and saved. 
For no sooner does the sinful man feel that the deadly 
poison of sin has entered his soul and is hurrying him 
on to an undone eternity, and looks with penitential 
sorrow and humble confidence to the Divine Redeemer, 
than he forthwith becomes a joyful participant of that 
eternal life which is exclusively the gift of God ; his 
eye thenceforth brightens with the prospect of immor- 
tality, and in faith and hope, in gratitude and love, he 
treads the pathway of holiness that leads on to heaven. 

You will doubtless be told elsewhere that in order to 
secure this inestimable gift of God, eternal life, some- 
thing more is requisite than I have mentioned. You 
will be told, for example, that you must belong to a 
particular Church, having certain visible marks of an 
alleged apostolical character and descent, otherwise 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC 



255 



you cannot be saved ; and you will be told also that 
you must go through a regular course of prescribed 
religious observances, otherwise there can be no hope 
for you. But the mercy of God is not thus to be limited 
by the folly and presumption of man : the truth of God 
is not to be made of none effect by the lies of those who 
profess to do him honour while they insult him to his 
face. The wages of sin is death, and we have all 
earned these wages already ; but eternal life is wholly 
and solely the gift of God : and the manner in which 
alone we are made partakers of this unspeakable gift is 
declared by the Divine Redeemer himself in this lan- 
guage of encouragement to all, Look unto me, and be ye 
saved, all ye ends of the earth. 

Such, then, my friends, is the Gospel — the glad 
tidings which the God of mercy desires to be proclaimed 
everywhere to sinners of men. If there are any of you 
who have never heard it before, know that ye have 
heard it now ; and if ye should reject it notwithstand- 
ing, know that the fact will be remembered against ycu 
at the judgment day. 

I confess I have long considered a service of this 
kind in the distant interior of Australia — the congre- 
gation consisting, perhaps, of from thirty to fifty per- 
sons, hastily collected from the neighbourhood in a 
settler's parlour or barn, in a part of the country in 
which public prayer is not wont to be made — to have 
something in it of a much more apostolic character and 
aspect than when one has to march up in clerical 
habiliments, at the sound of a bell, to a regularly built 
church in a city or town to conduct a similar service 
in the midst of a numerous congregation. And the 
good that might be clone in this way by any person of 
the requisite zeal, and energy, and ability, in prevent- 
ing multitudes of families and individuals from falling 
into Popery or Puseyism on the one hand, or into 
absolute heathenism on the other, would be quite in- 
calculable. The evil influences to which I have ad- 
verted are already extensively and powerfully operative 
in Australia ; but I am sorry to say that, except in a 



256 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



few of the principal towns, there is absolutely nothing 
in the shape of an antidote to their deadly poison. 

Yass is as yet but a mere village, but from its cen- 
tral situation it will doubtless become a considerable 
town very rapidly. The plains, or rather downs, 
around it are thinly but most picturesquely covered 
with "apple-trees," as they are called by the colonists, 
merely from their resemblance to the European apple 
tree in their size and outline, for they do not resemble 
it in producing an edible fruit. The only place of 
worship in Yass is a Roman Catholic church : the last 
Protestant 'places of worship are at Goulburn ; and 
there is no other, of any denomination, for four hun- 
dred miles beyond Yass on the road to Melbourne. 

I had been unable to take any food from Friday 
morning at Marulan ; my breakfast, before divine ser- 
vice, had been carried away untouched, and notwith- 
standing the excitement of public speaking, after the 
cold and sleepless night from Goulburn, I had no in- 
clination to taste a morsel of anything on my return to 
the inn. The waiter, who seemed a good-natured, 
warm-hearted lad, observing me drooping, and expres- 
sing a degree of sympathy with which I w r as much 
pleased, recommended to me very strongly a glass of 
hot brandy and water, with a little dry toast. I 
thought it a strange prescription at the moment, for 
the sun was again burning hot ; but on taking it, which 
I did at the young man's suggestion, I felt much re- 
vived and refreshed. It was a day or two afterwards, 
however, before I recovered my usual tone on the road 
to Melbourne. 

The mail started again towards evening. At the 
extremity of the village the road crosses the Yass 
River, which in summer is an inconsiderable stream, 
but in winter, or after rain, a large river ; in crossing 
which at such times several lives have already been 
lost. About eight miles from Yass the road passes 
Mount Bunyong or B owning, and a village of the same 
name, very well situated. Mount Bowning is a re- 
markable object in this part of the country, and forms 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



257 



an excellent land-mark both for "Whites and Blacks, 
being visible for fifty miles round. It forms also the 
present boundary of location in New South Wales, the 
country beyond it being the proper region of the Squat- 
ters, or, as it is called, u the country beyond the boun- 
daries." Twelve miles from Bowning is Bogielong, an 
interesting part of the country, and apparently well 
adapted for the site of an inland village, as it possesses 
the two important requisites of good land and good 
water. The country, from Yass to Bogielong, is an 
open pastoral country. From thence to Reedy Creek, 
eleven miles farther, where the mail rests for the night, 
it is rather thickly wooded, although affording good 
pasture. Eeedy Creek is a highly picturesque locality, 
being surrounded by lofty mountain ranges that post- 
pone the rising, and hasten, in the same proportion, the 
setting of the sun. 

The mail started again at daybreak on Monday the 
19th. The road for a few miles crosses a succession of 
ridges of rather indifferent pasture, but at eight miles 
from Eeedy Creek it brings us to the valley of the 
Murrumbidgee, and the beautiful river — La Belle 
Riviere (for it really deserves the name) — running at 
our feet. 

Sir Thomas Mitchell has well observed that each of 
the great rivers of Australia has a peculiar and dis- 
tinctive character, which it preserves, with astonishing 
uniformity, along the whole of its course ; and this is 
remarkably the case with the Murrumbidgee, The 
course of that river is generally tortuous ; its banks 
are fringed with the beautiful swamp-oak, a tree of the 
casuariaa family, with a form and character somewhat 
intermediate between that of the Spruce and that of the 
Scotch fir, being less formal and Dutch-like than the 
former, and more graceful than the latter ; while it ever 
. and anon leaves either to the right or left an alluvial 
plain of various extent, flanked by venerable trees of 
the genus eucalyptus, and backed in by an open forest 
country. And so finely disposed for "effect are these 
ancient-looking trees, that if one w 7 ere suddenly con- 



258 



PHILLIP SL AND. 



veyed from England, without the consciousness of dis- 
tance, into the middle of one of these plains, he would 
conclude that the old lord, who had caused them to be 
planted about a century or two ago, must really have 
been a man of taste, and he would naturally be disposed 
to look out for the turrets of the ancient baronial castle 
in the first opening of the trees. The first of these 
plains or flats which the mail-route crosses is that of 
Jugiong, about nine miles from Reedy Creek, where 
there is a Village Reserve remarkably well selected. 
There is much fine land in this vicinity, and the coun- 
try looks exceedingly beautiful. 

Passing Jugiong, there is a succession of ridges 
affording tolerable pasture, but the country at the time 
we passed through it was not only suffering from want 
of rain, but had actually been burnt in recent confla- 
grations. In this part of the course, the route is fre- 
quently crossed by the deep dry beds of numerous 
torrents that in winter and in seasons of rain roll down 
a vast accumulation of water to the river, carrying 
large logs along with them. In such localities the best 
description of bridge to erect, when the country is suffi- 
ciently settled to render bridges of some kind absolutely 
necessary, would probably be Suspension-bridges. 

Twenty miles from Reedy Creek, the mail changes 
horses at Munny Munny, a flat similar to that of Jugi- 
ong, situated five miles from the river. It is surrounded 
with grassy hills, over which, however, an extensive 
conflagration had recently parsed, leaving their surface 
all black and desolate. Five miles farther is Kooluck, 
the nearest point to the Tu'naut River and the exten- 
sive plain of Darbillehra, situated at the point of its 
junction with the Murrumbidgee. This neighbourhood 
consists of grassy hills and a fine fertile country, and 
the intervening country to Gundagai, which is fifteen 
miles from Munny Munny, is all available for pasture. 

Gundagai is situated on one of the flats or plains on 
the banks of the Murrumbidgee, at the point where the 
road to Melbourne crosses that river. The Murrum- 
bidgee, I have already observed, rises on the north- 



THE XOHTHERX DISTRICTS. ETC. 



259 



eastern face of the Snowy Mountains, and pursues a 
northerly course as far as Yass, which it approaches 
within ten or twelve miles, receiving the Yass River 
into its current. It is then deflected to the south- 
westward to the point of its junction at Darbillehra 
with the Tumut River, which descends from the 
northern face of the mountains about twelve miles 
above Gundagai, from whence it pursues a westerly 
course till it joins the Hume River, and both form the 
Murray. 

Now, it appears to me that the Tumut and the 
Murrumbidgee constitute the proper boundary of New 
South TTales towards Philiipsland. It is true, Gunda- 
gai is only about two hundred and fifty miles from 
Sydney ; but that is the only point in the course of that 
river from its junction with the Tumut at which the 
distance from Sydney is so small. The distance in- 
creases every mile to the westward. The Hume River 
has doubtless been proposed as a boundary by certain 
parties in Sydney, and I was at one time disposed to 
acquiesce in this opinion myself ; but, on reconsidering 
the subject, I found that the establishment of such a_ 
boundary would be most unjust to Philiipsland, as it 
would place the bounclaiy within a hundred and fifty 
miles of Melbourne, at a point in the course of that 
river which is distant from Sydney from five to six 
hundred miles. With the Murrumbidgee as its north- 
ern boundary, Philiipsland would be a compact pro- 
vince — small, indeed, in comparison with New South 
Wales, but sufficiently extensive for a great agricul- 
tural and pastoral community ; while the annexation 
of Maneroo Plains and the coast-line to Cape Howe to 
the older colony, which Lord John Russell proposed to 
separate from it, would be sufficient to satisfy the 
wishes of all reasonable persons. 

The Murrumbidgee at Gundagai is as large as the 
Clyde at Glasgow. It is subject, however, like most 
of the Australian rivers, to great floods. These, in- 
deed, are not frequent, but they are very awful when 
they do come. The last that occurred was in the month 



260 



PHILLIPSL^ND. 



of October 1 844, and on that occasion the river rose up- 
wards of forty feet above its ordinary level — rising four 
feet above the floor of the parlour of the inn at Gun- 
dagai, and leaving a residuum or alluvial deposit of an 
inch thick on the flats. The people who had bought 
town allotments in Gundagai had done so in the belief 
that the locality was above the reach of floods ; and as 
the place had been surveyed and sold by the Govern- 
ment for a town, they could not suppose that they 
could possibly be disappointed in that belief. But the 
flood undeceived them when it came, and they had 
consequently, after all the expenditure they had incur- 
red on the old site, to memorialize the Government to re- 
move the township to a place above the reach of floods, 
and to grant them other allotments there, in lieu of 
those they had unwittingly purchased within the reach 
of inundations. But Sir George Gipps replied that 
they had purchased their allotments for better, for 
ivorse — alluding, apparently, to the case of marriage — 
and must therefore do the best they could with their 
bad bargains, as the exchange they asked for could not 
be sanctioned ! As I can scarcely trust myself with 
the task of making the proper comment on so heartless 
a reply, I shall leave the reader to make one for himself. 

The Murrumbidgee pursues a westerly course of 
nearly 400 miles to the point of its junction with the 
Hume. Its reaches are seldom above half a mile in 
length, and the plains that characterize its valley ex- 
tend along its banks the whole way down, as well as 
for two or three hundred miles above Gundagai — the 
whole of the available land on either side being either 
held as Squatting Stations, or occupied by small settlers 
who cultivate the land and keep a few cattle besides. 
Towards the sources of the river the crops are rather 
uncertain, from the cold and frequent frosts in the 
vicinity of the Snowy Mountains ; but as Gundagai is 
greatly below the level of Yass — which is only about 
1300 feet above the level of the sea — the banks of the 
river in that neighbourhood enjoy a climate sufficiently 
hot for the cultivation of maize. One of the character- 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



261 



istics of the Murrumbidgee, as compared with the 
Southern Rivers, is the fringe of swamp-oaks on its 
banks. This tree is not found farther South, and it 
would consequently seem to indicate the commence- 
ment of a different climate on the parallel of that river. 
The whole of the land on both banks of the Murrum- 
bidgee, with the exception of the town allotments sold 
at Gunclagai, is still the property of the Grown. 

The Murrumbidgee is crossed at Gundagai by a punt, • 
and the road, for the first twenty miles to Mundarlo, or 
rather for the first thirty-five miles to Tarcotta Creek, 
follows the westerly course of the river, presenting a 
succession of beautiful fiats and a most fertile country ; 
ranges of hills, of moderate elevation and w T ell clothed 
with grass, hemming in the view on all sides. The 
prevailing character of the rock from Yass to Tarcotta 
Creek is a species of schistus, or greenish-coloured clay 
slate, of which the laminae are perpendicular to the 
horizon, or very slightly inclined. The ends of these 
laminae generally protrude a few inches above the sur- 
face, and are evidently undergoing the process of dis- 
integration from exposure to the elements. 

When changing horses at Mundarlo, I was requested 
by the wife of the innkeeper — an English woman of 
respectable appearance — to baptize one of her children, 
and she preferred the same request for her sister-in-law, 
w r ho lived close by, and who had two children unbap- 
tized. On inquiring into their character and history, 
which I did beforehand, I found they were both free 
immigrants, the wives of two brothers of the name of 
Vincent, and had been Wesleyan Methodists in Eng- 
land. How one of the brothers had come to take a 
public-house in the interior, I did not inquire ; but I was 
gratified to learn that they did not like the occupation, 
and were on the eve of giving it up — the two husbands 
being absent at the time erecting a house for their 
future residence at some distance off, where they in- 
tended to take up a Squatting Station and to cultivate 
a piece of ground. I accordingly dispensed the ordin- 
ance of baptism to the three children, the postman 



262 



PHILLIPS LAND. 



ha ring agreed to halt for the purpose for half an hour. 
The two women were very grateful, and wished to make 
me some pecuniary compensation, which, of course, I 
declined ; but they would not allow me to pay for a 
slight refreshment I had previously ordered for the 
postman and myself. 

An exceedingly melancholy event had taken place in 
this neighbourhood a few days before I passed through 
it. A Scotch immigrant, of the name of Graham, a shoe- 
maker, had, it seems, found his way up to the Murrum- 
bidgee a few years before, with his wife and two 
children, and had settled and was doing well at Mun- 
darlo. But the wife had been seized with some disease, 
and had been ill for upwards of eighteen months. 
During her illness her husband had taken her to Syd- 
ney — nearly three hundred miles off — for medical ad- 
vice ; but she had got no better for it, and died shortly 
after her return, leaving her husband two young 
children, of two and four years of age respectively, 
whom he had reared for two years thereafter with the 
most affectionate care. A few clays before, however, 
the two children had gone out with a third child in the 
neighbourhood, of the same tender age. That other child 
returned shortly afterwards, but was not old enough to 
tell that anything had happened to its two companions. 
Towards evening their father, becoming alarmed at 
their not returning home, went out in search of them, 
and found both of them drowned in a deep creek that 
communicates with the Murrumbidgee. It was sup- 
posed that the younger child had fallen into the creek, 
and that the other had fallen in also in endeavouring 
to pull it out. I felt exceedingly for the poor man, 
who had thus been left all alone in the world, in a state 
of extreme desolation, in a strange land ; and the 
postman, at my request, stopped at his cottage that I 
might see him and converse with him. Unfortunately, 
however, he was absent at the time, and I did not see 
him. We arrived at Mate's Inn, Tarcotta Creek, on 
the Murrumbidgee river, before sunset — the distance 
we had travelled, from Reedy Creek, being only seventy 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 263 

miles. This is considered the Half-way Station be- 
tween Sydney and Melbourne, at which the mails in 
the opposite directions meet — the two postmen merely 
exchanging the bags, and returning on their respective 
beats on the following day. The distance in round 
numbers is 300 miles from each of the two termini. 
There is a great extent of good land, as well for agri- 
culture as for grazing, in this vicinity. 

The mail again started from Tarcotta Creek at day- 
break on the 20th, the course being first South, and 
then S.W. by W. to the Hume River. The general 
character of the country for the whole of this day's 
journey between the two rivers is hill and dale, with 
extensive plains, bounded by picturesque mountain 
ridges, and abounding in excellent pasture. It is en- 
tirely a pastoral country, and is extensively occupied 
by flocks and herds. Some portions of this tract of 
country, especially towards the Hume River, are sur- 
passingly beautiful, as well from the undulations of the 
ground as from the distribution and character of the 
fine forest trees that are thinly scattered over its sur- 
face, and from the abundance of the pasture. 

Our first stage on this day's course reached to 
Kiamba, seventeen miles, where we changed horses. 
There is a grazing station in this locality belonging to 
Messrs. Walker of Sydney, under the superintendence 
of a respectable Scotchman, of the name of Smith, 
from the county of Forfar, in Scotland. Mr. Smith 
had arrived as a free immigrant in 1832, and had mar- 
ried one of his fellow T -passengers — a respectable young 
woman from Ireland — and he had been always in the 
distant interior during the interval. His cottage was 
a comfortable bush-house, situated on an eminence by 
the wayside. He had a garden and some ground in 
cultivation, to raise grain for his family, around it ; 
and the numerous sheep and cattle of his employers, 
including, in all likelihood, his own smaller herd, 
roamed on the hills and plains for miles around. 

The mail stopped at this station only to deliver some 
letters and papers. I was not previously acquainted 



264 



PHILLIFSLAND. 



with Mr. Smith, and did not even know that he was 
a Scotchman ; but recognising me on the mail, from 
having seen me in Sydney, he requested me to baptize 
his youngest child, which, the postman agreeing to 
halt for some time, I did accordingly. Mr. Smith in- 
formed me, that there were several other Presbyterian 
families in that part of the country, who had also 
children growing up unbaptized, and that on their be- 
half, as well as on his own, he had requested the near- 
est Presbyterian minister, the Eev. Mr. of 

, to visit them, to celebrate divine service 

among them, and to baptize their children — offering to 
pay his expenses to and fro by the mail, the distance 

being only 175 miles. But Mr. had excused 

himself from time to time, till at last he got married, 
when he told them it was not convenient for him to 
leave home. It would appear, therefore, that a burn- 
ing zeal for the extension of the Church of Christ, and 
the spiritual welfare of the Scottish emigrant, is not one 
of the characteristics of the HalMYay-House theology. 
If the marriage of a Protestant minister is to prevent 
him from undertaking journeys of this kind, when 
there is a clear case of duty before him, as there evi- 
dently was in the instance in question, I must acknow- 
ledge that it furnishes a strong argument for the Po- 
pish doctrine of the celibacy of the clergy. And, 
therefore, although I had personally done everything 
in my power for twenty years, and upwards, to procure 
acceptable Presbyterian ministers for the colony, and 
had encountered in my various efforts of this kind a 
degree of obloquy and reproach, as well as of personal 
and rancorous hostility from various quarters, which 
I could never have anticipated, I could not help feel- 
ing both ashamed and vexed exceedingly for the cha- 
racter of the body I belonged to, as a Presbyterian 
minister, when Mr. Smith added, with much feeling 
and with perfect truth, — ff The Eomish priests are the 
only clergy that seem to care about the people in this 
part of the country. No minister, of any Protestant 
denomination, ever visits us." 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



265 



Pudet haec opprobria nobis, 
Et dici, et non potuisse refelli. 

When the ordinance of "baptism had been dispensed, 
and I had made the necessary memoranda. Mr. Smith 
observed. ' ; that he believed there were some fees con- 
nected with the registration of the baptism.'' Per- 
ceiving that his object was to make me a pecuniary 
present, I told him " there was nothing of the kind ; 
for I kept the register myself, and no fees of any kind 
were received." — " Well/' said Mr, Smith, " I know 
you are travelling for the public good, and your ex- 
penses must be very heavy, so you will allow me to 
contribute towards defraying them and he accord- 
ingly handed me an order on one of the banks in Syd- 
ney, which, on these terms, I could not refuse, and 
which was duly honoured on my return to Xew South 
Wales. I mention the circumstance chiefly to point 
out the folly and the falsehood of those who tell us, 
that a minister of religion who goes forth into the in- 
terior of Australia to seek the welfare of the children 
of his people, and to dispense among them the ordi- 
nances of religion, will receive neither encouragement 
nor support from the people among whom he goes, 
and must therefore have a Government salary, like 
the Half- Way-House men. By the way, it is this 
mystery of the Government salary that completely ex- 
plains the other mystery of the Half- Way Theology. 
The Half- Way-men liked the Free Church well, as a 
certain ancient prophet did the children of Israel, when 
he could not help saying, " How goodly are thy tents, 
0 Jacob, and thy tabernacles, 0 Israel I" but then the 
Government salary of the king of Moab was not to be 
despised — and so they could only give the left hand of 
fellowship to the Free Church, reserving the right hand 
for those who could give the Government salaries. 
Their motto was — Medio tutissimus ibis. 

I found a species of ophthalmia, or affections of the 
eyes, somewhat prevalent along the valley of the Mur- 
rumbidgee, and afterwards on the Hume and Ovens 
Rivers. It seems to be much more prevalent in this 



266 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



part of the interior, than towards the Eastern coast, 
where it is generally called " the blight" by the colo- 
nists. The country, along these rivers, is but slightly 
elevated above the level of the sea, and must conse- 
quently be very hot in summer. Besides, it is much 
nearer the Great Desert of the interior, recently dis- 
covered by Captain Sturt ; the hot winds from which 
must blow with much greater intensity of heat in this 
part of the country, than after they have crossed the 
Coast Range to the eastward. For the same reason, 
doubtless, the blight or Australian ophthalmia is very 
prevalent at Adelaide in South Australia. It seems 
to be the extreme aridity of the atmosphere during 
these winds, that occasions this peculiar affection, pro- 
bably by causing undue evaporation from the moist 
surface of the eye. It is not at all dangerous, from any 
thing I could learn respecting it, but it is very painful, 
and very troublesome ; for the patient almost loses the 
use of his eyes during the continuance of the affection, 
and must keep himself shut up, if he can, in a darken- 
ed apartment. I found a gentleman in this state at the 
inn on the Ovens River. He had been driving cattle 
and horses over the mountains to Port Phillip, along 
with his men ; and some of the herd having gone 
astray, he was riding about in the open forest in search 
of them, under an almost vertical sun, when he was 
seized with this affection of the eyes, and confined to 
the inn. I have been obliged myself, when riding in 
the open forest right against a hot wind in New South 
Wales, to put a silk handkerchief in my hat, and let 
it fall dowm like a veil over my face, to protect my 
eyes from the burning heat of this Australian sirocco. 
People who are not exposed to the glare of the sun, 
and the current of heated air during a hot wind, are 
seldom affected in the way I have mentioned ; but the 
colonists generally are very careless in this respect, 
and expose themselves needlessly to both sun and wind, 
as freely as they would in England. 

At the period of my journey overland, the country 
in the interior had been suffering from drought. There 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



267 



had been no rain for nearly three months ; the water 
was getting scarce ; the grain was exhibiting a pinched 
appearance, and bush-fires were frequent. A party 
driving sheep to a different part of the country had ac- 
tually been setting fire to the grass behind them as 
they moved onwards, and it was burning in many 
places simultaneously. Mr. Smith informed us, that 
about twenty-eight miles from Kiamba, clown the Mur- 
rumbidgee, at a place called by its beautiful Aborigi- 
nal name, Euranarina^ a Mr. Thomson, a squatter, had 
just had his station and stacks all burnt down by one 
of these bush-fires. 

The stage from Kiamba to Billibung forest is 
twenty-eight miles, and this distance is performed by 
the same pair of horses. The postman from Tarcotta 
Creek to Billibung is a German from Leipsic, of the 
name of JohannPabst, or John Pope, who had arrived 
in Xew South Wales nearly twenty years ago, as a 
hired servant or shepherd, in the employment of the 
Australian Agricultural Company, at Port Stephen, to 
the northward of Sydney, and who, after serving out 
his time, had married a respectable free immigrant 
from Dublin, and was now comfortably settled at Bil- 
libung. He had a good cottage, and cultivated a piece 
of ground for grain, roots, and vegetables, and he had 
some cattle grazing in the vicinity, while he drove the 
mail to and fro to Tarcotta Creek, a distance of forty- 
five miles, twice every week. I had made the ac- 
quaintance of this reputable and industrious man on a 
former journey. He had been a Lutheran at home, 
and his wife, who was also a Protestant, had appa- 
rently been endeavouring to discharge her duty to her 
children with the care and affection of a Christian pa- 
rent. On the present occasion he requested me to 
baptize one of his children, which I did accordingly 
with great pleasure. 

Billibung is in ordinary seasons a fine grassy country, 
and the creek of that name, which passes the mail 
station, spreads out into a series of picturesque lagoons, 
at a considerable distance off, before it enters the Mur- 



268 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



rumbidgee, watering a fine level tract of grassy coun- 
try, called Eurana Plains. 

The next stage to Mullinjandra is eighteen miles, 
and the one to Albany, on the Hume River, is twenty- 
two ; the country becoming gradually more open and 
picturesque towards the Hume. 

There is occasionally a great want of water in the 
extensive tract of pastoral country between the Mur- 
rumbidgee and the Hume, except near the rivers, and 
the more permanent creeks or tributaries that fall into 
them. But this can only be a temporary inconvenience ; 
for almost everywhere in this tract of country, there 
are ample facilities for ensuring a permanent supply of 
waiter by artificial means, at a comparatively small ex- 
pense — I mean by forming reservoirs, and damming-up 
creeks. But so long as the Squatters are merely year- 
ly tenants-at-will, and so long as they can only pur- 
chase the great extent of grazing land they now oc- 
cupy and require in such parts of the country at the 
absurd Parliamentary rate of a pound an acre, no such 
operations can be undertaken, and the improvement 
and settlement of the country must therefore be indefi- 
nitely retarded. 

The mail reached Albany, on the right bank of the 
Hume River, where it rests for the night, about an hour 
before sunset ; the distance from Tarcotta Creek being 
eighty-five miles. The valley of the Hume is remark- 
ably different from that of the Murrumbidgee, and the 
plains on either side of the river are really splendid. 
These plains are generally traversed in a direction pa- 
rallel to the course of the river, and at a considerable 
distance from it, by long narrow lagoons, which are evi- 
dently supplied from the river in seasons of inundation ; 
and both these lagoons, and the river itself, are flanked 
by lofty and umbrageous trees, that give a noble and 
park-like character to the scene. These plains consist 
of alluvial land of the first quality for cultivation ; and 
although they are occasionally flooded, they can easily 
be cultivated with perfect safety notwithstanding, as 
there is always high ground at a moderate distance on 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



269 



the outskirts of the plains. A crop may doubtless be 
lost now and then; but the rich alluvium which the 
river leaves behind it will far more than counterba- 
lance all the loss that can ever in ordinary circumstan- 
ces, be experienced from its occasional inundations. 

What an immense population might not the beauti- 
ful and fertile valleys of these two great rivers — the 
Murrumbidgee and the Hume — sustain ! The whole 
surplus population of Britain, for a century to come, 
might easily be located on their banks, and there would 
be " ample room and verge enough" in the pastoral 
country behind to rear sheep and cattle to supply the 
vast community with animal food to the full. And 
yet we are to be gravely told by " Mil Solomon Tfise- 
man," I suppose, of the North British Review, that 
" Australia is the poorest of countries for planting 
colonies in !" To such responses of this modern 
Pythian, I can only reply, " No doubt, but ye are the 
people,, and wisdom shall die with you. But I have 
understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to 
you," in this matter at least. 

In an article on Australia, in the North British 
Beview for February 1846, the writer has the mo- 
dest assurance to inform his readers, that " as a seat 
for colonies, Australia is the poorest of countries, in 
natural sources of wealth," and that " she has not the 
physical advantage of producing any one staple article 
peculiar to her climates, soils, or mineral products." 
The gross ignorance exhibited in such statements is 
only equalled by their extreme folly and presumption. 
To tell us that " Australia is the poorest of countries 
in natural sources of wealth," in the face of the vast 
import of wool from that country, in proportion to its 
colonial population, is so manifest an absurdity, that, 
in order to be seen and acknowledged, it requires only 
to be mentioned. The district of Port Phillip, for ex- 
ample, had been occupied only ten years, at the end 
of the year 1846, and yet its export of wool, which has 
hitherto been increasing at the rate of 25 per cent, an- 
nually, amounted for that year to 24,000 bales, or six 



270 



PHILLIP SLAXD. 



millions of pounds ! Xow, let this Sir Oracle of the 
North British, who seems to have forgotten what is re- 
quired in the ninth Commandment, as well as what is 
forbidden, point out to us. if he can. a single instance 
in the whole history of British colonization, of a i; na- 
tural source of wealth" producing such results as this 
for a colonial population of not more than 32.000 souls, 
in the tenth year of the existence of the settlement. 

I cannot pretend indeed to know what this writer 
means particularly by a w natural source of wealth," 
unless it is something opposed to 11 artificial." or the 
result of cultivation ; and in this sense of the phrase, I 
appeal to every intelligent reader, as to whether Aus- 
tralia is not the only country ever colonized by Great 
Britain, that has a " natural source of wealth'"' worth 
mentioning. For surely the very inferior timber and 
the potash of the British North American Colonies, are 
not to be put in comparison, for one moment, with the 
wool of Australia. Doubtless the u artificial sources 
of wealth" in Australia have, as yet, produced very 
little — for this best of all reasons, that the avail- 
able labour of the country has been almost entirely oc- 
cupied in gathering in the vast product of its %i natural 
sources." But let equal enterprise, and capital, and 
skill, and labour be applied to the soil, and Australia, 
I am confident, will produce, in addition to everything 
that is raised in Europe, both cotton and tobacco as 
freely and to as vast an amount as the United States, 
and sugar in a quantity not less than the, whole united 
export of both East and West Indies. 

It is true. Count Strzelecki has shown, as Sir Tho- 
mas Mitchell had done before him, that Xew South 
Wales Proper, or the portion of Eastern Australia in- 
cluded between Cape Howe and the thirtieth parallel 
of South latitude, for a hundred and fifty miles from 
the coast — being chiefly a vast conglomeration of sand- 
stone mountains and their debris — contains a very 
large proportion of absolutely sterile country, as com- 
pared with its whole extent. It is true also, that the 
countrv recently traversed by Mr. Eyre, to the west- 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



271 



ward, and the country since traversed by Captain 
Sturt to the northward of the inhabited portions of 
South Australia, consist of a succession of dreary de- 
serts ; but what has this to do with the physical cha- 
racter and capabilities of other parts of Australia, 
which neither of these travellers ever visited — with the 
Port Phillip country, for example, to the westward of 
Count Strzelecki's limits, and to the eastward of Mr. 
Eyre's, or with the vast extent of country to the north- 
ward of the thirtieth parallel of South latitude ? Is it 
not the fact, that some of the finest regions on the face 
of the earth are found in the immediate neighbourhood 
of other regions of absolute sterility? Witness " the 
glorious and pleasant land" of Palestine itself on the 
borders of the great Syrian desert. Witness the land 
of Yemen, or Arabia Felix, in close vicinity with 
Arabia Deserta. Witness the land of Egypt, on the 
edge of the great African Desert. And why, then, 
should it appear strange to find something similar in 
so vast a country as Australia ? 

In an able speech delivered in the Legislative Coun- 
cil of New South Wales, during the Session of 1845, 
by Dr. Nicholson, the present Speaker of that body, it 
was shown from official tables exhibiting the numbers 
of sheep and cattle in proportion to the population in 
the following countries, and the quantities of animal 
food consumed in these countries respectively, that the 
sheep in New South Wales — of which the population, 
including the district of Port Phillip, was then only 
181,500 — would supply food of that particular descrip- 
tion to 

3,500,000 of the inhabitants of Great Britain. 



ticut in the United States ; while the horned cattle of 
New South Wales would supply food of that particular 
description to 

4,100,000 of the inhabitants of Great Britain. 



5,000,000 
5,400,000 
7,200,000 
5,000,000 



do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 



France. 
Lower Canada. 
Upper Canada, 
the State of Connec- 



272 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



5,980,000 of the inhabitants of France. 

1,500,000 do. Lower Canada. 

1,700,000 do. Upper Canada. 

1,300,000 do. the State of New York. 

1,600,000 do. the State of Connecticut. 

Now, in what did the wealth of Abraham, and Isaac, 
and Jacob, and Job — who were all considered wealthy 
men in their day — consist, but in their flocks and 
herds, and in the marketable value of these flocks and 
herds " in current money with the merchant?" 

Then, as to the value of the actual Colonies of Aus- 
tralia to the mother-country, as exhibited in the 
amount of British produce they receive and consume 
annually, as compared with other countries to which 
such produce is also exported, the following table, ex- 
tracted from the Immigration Report of the Legislative 
Council of New South Wales for the year 1845, which 
was drawn up by Dr. Nicholson, w T ill afford a singular 
illustration of the accuracy of the information of the 
North British Reviewer. 



Produce of 




Value of Im- 


Being 


at 


Great Britain 
received An- 


Population. 


ports from 
Great 


the rate 
per Head 


nually by 




Britain. 




of 






£ 


£ 


s. 


d. 


Russia . . . 


60,000,000 


1,895,519 


0 


0 


H 


Prussia 


14,000,000 


483,904 


0 


0 




France . . 


35,000,000 


2,534,898 


0 


1 


n 


Cape of Good 










Hope . . 


160,000 


502,577 


3 


2 


9f 


United States 












of America 


18,000,000 


5,013,514 


0 


5 


6f 


Mauritius . . 




258,014 








China . . . 




1,456,180 








Canadas . 


1,000,000 


1,751,211 


1 


15 


o-i 


Australia (be- 












ing the ave- 












rage of the 












last 5 years, 


175,000 


1,314,161 


7 


10 


91 
- 4 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



273 



The exports of New South "Wales, including the Dis- 
trict of Port Phillip, for the year 1845, amounted to 
upwards of a million and a-half sterling, being at the 
rate of <£8, lis. 5d. per head of the whole population. 

I should not have been so careful to vindicate the 
physical character and reputation of my adopted coun- 
try from the aspersions of this Reviewer, had the mat- 
ter been a mere literary question, and had the practi- 
cal tendency of these aspersions not been materially 
to injure the cause of our common Protestantism in the 
Southern Hemisphere. For who are the parties that 
will have reason to thank the Scotch Reviewer for the 
very indifferent character he has thus given of Austra- 
lia, as " the poorest of countries, in natural sources of 
wealth," — a country that " has not the physical ad- 
vantage of producing any one staple article peculiar to 
her climates, soils, or mineral products ?" Why, it is 
such men as Father 0' Grady of the county Galway, 
and Father O'Mulligan of the county Tipperary, and 
Dean M'Corcoran of the county Dublin, and Father 
Murphy of the county Limerick, &c. &c. These Rev- 
erend Gentlemen are all doubtless in the secret of 
the famous conspiracy to Romanize the Southern He- 
misphere by means of a vast amount of Irish Roman 
Catholic emigration to Australia ; and as their people 
are not likely to read what has generally been con- 
sidered as the Free Church Organ, the cause they are 
promoting will reap all the benefit of the deep dispa- 
ragement into which emigration to Australia will thus 
be brought among the best part of the population of 
Scotland. And we, Protestants of Australia, who are 
feebly struggling all the while to save our adopted 
country from the unspeakable calamity and curse of 
the incubus of Irish Popery, are thus to have the 
" masked battery" of the Free Church directed against 
us, and all the influence of that influential body em- 
ployed to discourage Protestant emigration to Austra- 
lia ! Perhaps, however, " it has been an oversight," 
as I am quite sure it has, as far at least as these con- 
sequences are concerned ; and if so, we shall probably 

s 



274 



PBILLIPSLA^D-. 



have " justice to Australia " from the same quarter by 
and bve. 

The t alley of the Hume is of various breadth, hut 
generally about twelve miles, and it is flanked on either 
side by a terrace or outer-bank that separates the ag- 
ricultural land below from the pastoral or upland coun- 
try. It is occupied on either side by Squatting Sta- 
tions for two hundred miles above Albury, and for an 
equal distance below. 

The Hume, the Murrumbidgee, the Ovens, the Goul- 
burn, the Yarra-Yarra, and the rivers of Western Port 
and Gippsiand, all rise in the Snowy Mountains or 
Australian Alps. Of this mountainous region, as well 
as of the country in which the Hume River takes its 
rise, the following description is from the pen of Count 
Strzelecki, in his work already repeatedly quoted, en- 
titled Physical Description of New South Wales and Van 
Diemaus Land. It must be observed, however, that 
the Count improperly calls the Hume River the 
Murray, which is not the name of that river, till after 
its junction with the Murrumbidgee ; as Captain Sturt, 
the discoverer of the Murray, who has the best right 
to knoWj distinctly acknowledges in a Report, by that 
distinguished Australian traveller, of a journey down 
the Hume River to the junction of the two streams. 

* The cluster of broken peaks which mark the sources of the 
Murrumbidgee, Condradigbee, and the Doomut ; the ridges which 
form walls as it were for their respective courses ; indeed, the 
whole structure of the spurs about this locality imparts to them 
the character of bold outworks in advance of that prominent 
group of mountains, known in New South Wales under the name 
of the Australian Alps. 

" Conspicuously elevated above all the heights hitherto noticed 
in this cursory view, and swollen by many rugged protuberan- 
ces, the snowy and craggy sienitic cone of Mount Kosciuszko is 
seen cresting the Australian Alps, in a-i the sublimity of moun- 
tain scenery. Its altitude reaches 6500 feet, and the view from 
H| summit sweeps over 7000 square miles. Standing above the 
adjacent mountains, which could neither detract from its imposing 
aspect nor interrupt the view, Mount Kosciuszko is one of those 
tew elevations, the ascent of which, far from disappointing, pre- 
sents the traveller with all that can remunerate fatigue. In the 
north-eastward view, the eye is carried as far back as the Shoal- 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



275 



haven country ; the ridges of all the spurs of Maneiro and Two* 
fold Bay, as well as those which, to the westward, inclose the 
tributaries of the Murrumbidgee, being conspicuously delineated. 
Beneath the feet, looking from the very verge of the cone down- 
wards almost perpendicularly, the eye plunges into a fearful 
gorge, 3000 feet deep, in the bed of which the sources of the 
Murray gather their contents, and roll their united waters to the 
west. 

" To follow the course of the river from this gorge into its fur- 
ther windings, is to pass from the sublime to the beautiful. The 
valley of the Murray, as it extends beneath the traveller's feet, 
with the peaks of Corunal, Dargal, Mundiar, and Tumburumba, 
crowning the spur which separates it from the valley of the Mur- 
rumbidgee, displays beauties to be compared only to those seen 
among the valleys of the Alps. From Mount Kosciuszko, the 
chain resuming its south-west direction still maintains the same 
bold character, but with diminished height. To the right and 
left, its ramifications are crowned by peaks, rendering the ap- 
pearance of the country rugged and sterile. With the vicinity 
of Lake Omeo, and a part of the Mitta Mitta Valley, lying be- 
tween the space crowned by Mount Yabbara and that surmount- 
ed by Mount Ajuk, a tract resembling a vast basin, without trees, 
and scantily supplied with water, but covered even during a 
parching summer with luxuriant pasture, the whole region west- 
ward of the chain, towards Western Port, is rent by narrow gul- 
lies almost inaccessible, either by reason of the steepness of the 
ridges which flank them, or by the thick interwoven underwood 
which covers the country." 

In the year 1838, Captain Sturt travelled along the 
banks of the Hume River (for so he styles it in his 
Despatch to the Secretary of State) to its junction with 
the Murrumbidgee, which he ascertained was distant 
260 miles from Albury. According to this traveller, 
the Hume River receives the Ovens in latitude 84° 38' 
S., and longitude 146° 3' E. " About twenty-five 
miles," he observes, " below the junction of the Ovens, 
the current in the river became feebler, its waters were 
turbid, the flats along its banks expanded and appeared 
subject to inundations, and detached masses of reeds 
were scattered over them : these at length almost 
covered the primary levels, and, by the increasing 
height of the rings upon the trees, we judged that we 
were pressing into a region subject at times to deep 
and extensive floods. Accordingly, as we advanced, 
the reeds closed in upon us, and we moved through 



276 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



them along narrow lanes or openings which the natives 
had burnt, the reeds forming an arch over our heads, 
and growing to the height of 18 or 20 feet." In lati- 
tude 35° 52', the Hume receives a small stream from 
the north-east, called by the natives Delangen. Far- 
ther on, the river turns suddenly to the eastward of 
south, " flowing through a barren country of white 
tenacious clay, above the reach of flood, but of the 
most gloomy character." In latitude 36° 3' S. and longi- 
tude 144° 58' E. it receives the Goulburn, " a deep river, 
most beautifully fringed with acacia of a dark green 
hue." Captain Sturt afterwards traversed "a country 
subject to flood, of a blistered soil, and heavy for teams 
to drag through ; and we at length," he adds, " got once 
more into the region of reeds. I should state that the 
river is navigable alons: its whole course. The flats, 
which extend to some distance on either side of it in its 
upper branches, are rich in soil, and are better adapted 
for cattle than for sheep." * 

Immediately after the mail had reached Albury, 
I took advantage of the remaining daylight by ascend- 
ing a steep hill on the right bank of the river near the 
town, to learn something of the general character of 
the surrounding country, and to admire the scene from 
its top. Whether this hill was the one called, by Sir 
Thomas Mitchell, Mount Ochtertyre, I did not ascer- 
tain ; but it seemed to be almost entirely composed of 
blocks and angular pieces of quartz of various hues, 
with a considerable quantity of micacious schistus to- 
wards its summit. The view from the top of the hill 
was exceedingly fine. From east to west, in the direc- 
tion of south, the horizon was shut in by a succession 
of mountains and mountain-ranges, of great variety of 
form, and some of them of great elevation ; while the 
sun was slowly descending behind the distant peaks of 



* Captain Sturt's Account of his Journey down the Hume 
Kiver, in the month of April 1838, Royal Geographical So- 
ciety's Journal for 1844, p. 144. 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



277 



a lofty tier in the far west. To the eastward the noble 
river, which was flowing with a rapid current at the 
foot of the hill, could be traced for a great distance in 
the direction of its source in the Snowy Mountains, by 
the long line of beautiful plains on its banks and the 
tall umbrageous trees that either fringe the borders of 
the numerous lagoons parallel to the course of the 
river, or are thinly scattered over the surface of the 
plains. To the westward the river soon disappears 
among the hills that in this part of its course approach 
close to its banks. 

Albury is finely situated for a town — plenty of the 
finest land to grow grain and everything else for a city 
as large as London, and plenty of excellent water ; 
but, like Gundagai, it is open to this insurmountable 
objection, that it is subject to inundations. Besides, 
it has not yet been definitively ascertained where the 
permanent crossing-place on the great road from Sydney 
to Melbourne should be. The western tier of mountains, 
over which the sun was going down when I had reached 
the summit of the hill near Albury, is sixty miles far- 
ther down the river, and there are no further elevations 
for hundreds of miles to the westward. The river also 
in that part of its course approaches within a hundred 
and fifty miles of Melbourne, and the intervening coun- 
try is nearly a dead level. The country, moreover, 
beyond the western tier, is described by those who have 
seen it as being quite splendid, consisting of fine rich 
grassy plains stretching across the whole way to the 
Murrumbidgee River, while it is also alleged that the 
distance to Sydney from that point on the Hume River 
would be considerably less than by the present route 
from Albury. For these reasons, it is not at all im- 
probable that the future great line of communication 
between Sydney and Melbourne will pass to the west- 
ward of ail the outlying mountain -ranges that stretch 
out in a westerly direction from the Snowy Mountains, 
and cross the Hume River somewhere between sixty 
and a hundred miles below Albury. At all events, if 
steam-communication by means of railways is to be 



278 



PHILLIFSLANX?. 



introduced into Phillipsland, that would seem to be tlie 
proper course for it to take to get to the northward, as 
it would open up a more extensive tract both of agri- 
cultural and of pastoral country, while in all likelihood 
it would be much less expensive than the present line. 

In the lower part of the course of the Hume River 
there is either an ancient channel or an ana-branch of 
the river, formed by its overflowings in times of inun- 
dation, called the Edward, which, taking a northerly 
direction towards the Murrumbidgee, diverges about 
forty miles from the Hume, and then pursues a westerly 
course for about a hundred and fifty miles, till it returns 
again to tli€ river. The tract of country included be- 
tween the Hume and this ana-branch is a splendid 
pastoral country, called Boyd's Plains, in honour of 
Benjamin Boyd, Esq., lately one of the Representatives 
of Port Phillip in the Legislative Council of New 
South Wales, who has an extensive Squatting Estab- 
lishment on the Edward. It probably contains 5000 
or 6000 square miles altogether. [ Ji \o 

Although there is as yet no police establishment and 
no place of worship of any denomination in the neigh- 
bourhood of Albury, there are "The Albury Races ; ? 
and regularly as the proper season returns, — 

Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum, 

u There is racing and chasing o'er Albury lea." 

-noD bJi io io fSfnaH sift to lediis noiJ-Bgrvjsxi am jou 

The races had been held very shortly before the period 
of my journey overland, and they necessarily formed a 
source of attraction and congregation for all persons 
of a certain class and character within a circuit of fifty 
or a hundred miles. There was, of course, much bet- 
ting and much drinking on the occasion. The Christian 
Sabbath also was the best day of the races ; and Brown ? 
the innkeeper at Albury, was reluctantly obliged on 
that day to serve out rum in bucket-fulls to his lawless 
customers on the race-ground. It is unfortunate for 
the cause of decency and the morals of the colonial 
public, that so many of the respectable Squatters coun- 
tenance and support these disgraceful exhibitions. But 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



279 



I suspect it was much, the same even in ancient Arca- 
dia, as far as rural morality was concerned notwithstand- 
ing the ravings of the poets ; for even the sons of Jacob 
afford us but a very indifferent picture of ancient squat- 
ting, judging at least from the " raid" of Shechem and 
their treatment of poor Joseph. I am strongly of 
opinion, with the able and Reverend Dr. Vaughan of 
Manchester, that large towns or cities are, after all. the 
most fruitful sources of moral influence, as well as of 
civil and religious liberty, in the world. For example, 
bad as we are reputed to be at Sydney, by Archbishop 
Whateley and others, a scene such as this at Albury 
could not have taken place within a hundred miles of 
that city. 

The mail started again from Albury at daybreak on 
the 2 1st. The river is crossed in a punt or barge, with 
a sort of apron at each end, wdiich is let clown towards 
the river-bank, and forms a pathway for horses and 
wheel-carriages of all kinds either into the punt or out 
of it. It is pulled across by means of a strong cable 
attached to the opposite banks of the river. The Hume 
River is, according to Sir Thomas Mitchell, eighty 
yards across. It is very deep, and the banks are 
generally very steep. Whether Captain Sturt is cor- 
rect in deeming it navigable the whole way to its junc- 
tion with the Murrumbidgee, I have not ascertained ; 
but the navigation either of the Hume, or of its con- 
tinuation the Murray, can never be of much use to 
Phillipsland, except, perhaps, as a feeder for the future 
railway to Melbourne. In this way a small steamer, 
to run both up and down the river for the carriage of 
goods, and produce and passengers, might greatly facili- 
tate the settlement and advancement of this part of the 
interior. 

For the first fifteen miles of the route to the Ovens 
River, the road traverses the valley of the Hume. It 
is all beautiful land, either for agriculture or for cattle 
pasture, being rather too rich and moist for sheep. 
There is then a succession of pretty steep ridges till 
within eight miles of the Ovens River ; the pasture on 



280 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



these ridges being in some places tolerably good, and 
in others indifferent enough. At twenty-three miles 
from Albury, the mail changes horses at Black-Dog 
Creek. I am sorry to say the beautiful native names 
disappear on this part of the course, and are succeeded 
by a set of vile English compounds, exactly like this 
one. It is most injudicious, and exhibits a great want 
of common sense and even of patriotism, to give such 
absurd names to any part of God's fair creation, espe- 
cially in new colonies. Who, for example, would ever 
think of emigrating from England to live at Black-Dog's 
Creek, or Paddy's River, or Ten-Mile Hollow, at the 
opposite extremity of the globe f But to pitch one's 
tent at Mundarlo, at Tarcotta, at Mullinjandra, at 
Euranarina, or on the Murrumbidgee, has something 
quite romantic and attractive in it. One has only to 
fancy them Greek, and many of these native names are 
as beautiful as any in Homer. 

The next stage, to the Ovens Eiver, where the mail 
stops for breakfast, is twenty-seven miles. I had the 
pleasure of meeting at the inn at this Station Mr. 
Green, the mail-contractor, who has a Squatting Station 
on the Ovens, and also another, the farthest down, I 
believe, on the Hume, and of whom I have already had 
occasion to make honourable mention. Mr. Green is 
a striking instance of what a man of enterprise and 
ability, conjoined with the strictest integrity, may ac- 
complish in raising himself in the world in these Aus- 
tralian colonies. He arrived in New South Wales as 
a non-commissioned officer in the 39th Regiment, and 
he is now, besides possessing extensive property in 
stock, the sole contractor for the mail along six hundred 
and fifty miles of bush road, from Yass to Melbourne 
and from Melbourne to Portland — an important public 
charge, of which he fulfils the arduous duties with 
entire satisfaction to the Local Government and the 
public, and, what is much more to his credit, with entire 
satisfaction to his own numerous hired servants. Another 
non-commissioned officer of the same Regiment, Mr. 
Andrews, who is settled as an innkeeper at Gundagai, 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 281 



has also acquired considerable property in the colony, 
and attained for himself and his family, by his perse- 
verance and his uniform propriety of conduct, a respect- 
able position in society. Mr. Green and Mr. Andrews 
are both natives of England. 

I was gratified, and I confess not a little surprised, 
to find on the parlour-table at Bond's Inn — a comfort- 
able well-conducted house of accommodation for tra- 
vellers at the crossing-place on the Ovens Eiver — 
several Latin and Greek books, which I found, on 
inquiry, belonged to a son of the innkeeper's who had 
been studying the classics at Melbourne. It is pecu- 
liarly pleasing to observe an indication of intellectual 
progress of this kind in any part of the interior of this 
extensive country. Not that there is any want of 
intelligence among the Squatters generally. On the 
contrary, a large proportion of them are men both of 
birth and education ; but then their intelligence is ail 
of English growth and manufacture, and there is 
no native crop, so to speak, coming forward, to give a 
permanent intellectual character to the country. The 
state of things in this respect in the colony resembles 
that of certain tracts of country, as in particular the 
district of Upper Hunter s River, in Xew South Wales, 
where there is a sufficient number of trees to give a 
woodland character to the landscape ; but then they 
are all old trees, and, from some cause or other which I 
cannot pretend to explain, there are no young ones 
coming forward to take their places when they die off. 

The Ovens — which was named by the two travellers, 
Messrs. Hovell and Hume, in honour of Brigade-Major 
Ovens, Private Secretary for some time to His Excel- 
lency Sir Thomas Brisbane, in the years 1824 and 
1825 — is the smallest of the four western rivers that 
originate in the Snowy Mountains. It is only forty 
yards wide. There is no great extent either of alluvial 
or of pastoral country on its banks. It is formed from 
the junction of another stream with the King River, at 
no great distance above the crossing-place, and it joins 
the Hume at from thirty to fifty miles farther down. 



282 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



There is a small extent of cultivation at the crossing- 
place, and both banks are occupied by Squatters the 
whole way up and down. All these western rivers are 
famous for a species of perch which the colonists call a 
cod. They are often caught of large size, from thirty 
to fifty pounds weight, and I can testify, from having 
tasted them once at the Ovens River, that they are 
truly delicious. 

From the Ovens to the Broken River, the distance, 
which occupies two stages, is thirty miles. The inter- 
vening country, as well as for eight railed beyond the 
Ovens towards the Hume, is all a plain, thinly wooded, 
apparently well-watered, and affording good pasture. 
The greater part of it. however, is rather of the second 
description of the Phillipsland plains than of the first, 
being scarcely suited for cultivation. 

The Broken River runs only for three or four 
months during winter, at which time it is often a for- 
midable stream. During the rest of the year, it is 
merely a succession of deep pools. There is much 
superior land available for cultivation, and a great ex- 
tent of good pasture, on its banks. It joins the Goul- 
burn at from fifty to sixty miles below the crossing- 
place. It is occupied in Squatting Stations on both 
sides along its entire course. I was told by a respect- 
able Scotchman who has a station on this river, and 
who was once a fellow-passenger with me from England, 
that fifty-six bushels of wheat per acre had been reap- 
ed on its banks. 

From the Broken River to Honeysuckle Creek, where 
the mail rests for the night, the distance is nineteen 
miles, making the whole day's journey from Aibury 
ninety-nine miles, the course being generally South. 
Instead of taking up my quarters at the inn at this 
station, I experienced a very cordial reception from 
Mr. Scobie, a Scotch gentleman who has an extensive 
Squatting Station in the neighbourhood. I was not 
acquainted with Mr. Scobie before, but on one of my 
former visits to Port Phillip I had met with Mrs. Scobie 
at the house of a mutual friend near Melbourne, before 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



283 



her marriage. Mrs. S. was from the north of Scotland, 
and her father, a Mr. Forbes, was also out in the 
colony with all his family. 

Mr. Scobie's is decidedly the best Squatter's house I 
saw on this journey. It is a neat, comfortable, wea- 
ther-boarded cottage, shingled, or covered with wooden 
slates, with deal-floors and glass- windows. It would 
be unjust to the Squatters generally, as well as to my 
worthy host in particular, to ascribe all this to Mrs. 
S. — of whom, at the same time, I have a very high 
opinion, and perhaps not the less so because I found that, 
like myself, she had formed but a low estimate of the 
Half-way Theology — for the Squatters have too keen 
a sense of propriety to ask any lady to live in such 
places as most of them live in themselves. But I con- 
fess I should be glad to see more of them married, if it 
were only to have this becoming sense of propriety, for 
which I am most willing to give them all credit, more 
frequently exhibited. 

The country for miles around Honeysuckle Creek is 
quite splendid — -finely undulating and evidently equally 
adapted for pasture and for cultivation, thinly timbered, 
and the trees of a shady foliage and graceful outline, 
thickly carpeted with grass and well-watered. Mr. 
Scobie's house is finely situated on the side of a gentle 
eminence, with a lagoon at a little distance in front. 
In short, it is just such a spot as one would be inclined 
to say of, if in quest of a permanent location, 

" This is my rest, here stili I'll stav, 
For I do like it well." * 

afttfsaia £i sofljsl&ib a.ili 4ifgm §4* ?°t «# 91 li&Hi. sdi 
The man started again at two o clock m the morning 

of the 2 2d. It was still dark (for there was no moon), 
and we had to grope our way along the bush-road 
through the forest the best way we could. The cir- 
cumstance reminded me of an incident of my first 
overland journey, when passing through the same dark 
forest towards Sydney in the month of June 1843, the 

eidooSt .aiM dfrn torn h&d I qVdhi^L no c l oi zihi'f lomi oi 
* Psalm cxxxii. verse 14. Scotch Metrical Version. 



284 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



middle of winter in Australia. It was about ten o'clock 
at night, pitch dark, with occasional rain, and ex- 
tremely cold, and I had been for some time dull and 
uncomfortable enough — when, all at once, the postman, 
knowing we were approaching the station at Honey- 
suckle Creek, blew a succession of flourishes on his 
horn or bugle, which he could handle remarkably well, 
to announce our arrival. I had never thought there 
was anything either interesting or romantic in the 
sound of a postman's horn before ; but at that moment 
it struck me as the most interesting, romantic, and even 
exciting sound I had ever heard. TTe were then, I 
could not help reflecting, in the remote interior of 
Australia, in a region which, till five or six years be- 
fore, had never been trodden by the foot of white man 
from the creation. But here was an undeniable evi- 
dence and appendage of the highest civilization — the 
Royal Mail, working its way amid the thick darkness 
through these vast solitudes, and causing its well-known 
and welcome voice to be heard and hailed in their 
deepest recesses, thereby extending and maintaining 
the fellowship and the brotherhood of man ! Here, 
then, all " old things had indeed passed aw r ay 7 and all 
things had become new." The dominion of wild 
nature had ended, and the rightful reign of man — a right 
derived from the first command of his Creator, f Be 
fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and sub- 
due it" — had begun. Doubtless there were as yet only 
the flocks and herds of the solitary European to occupy 
these long-neglected pastures, and the lonely bark-hut 
of the shepherd or stockman who tended them ; but 
these would ere long be succeeded by the white man's 
plough, and all the kindred arts of his wonderful and 
complicated civilization — by the institutions of law and 
policy, and the ordinances of religion. Each of these 
solitary valleys would ere long have its village, and 
each village its school-house and its church, while the 
Sabbath-bell would be heard in its most secluded wilds, 
and the " multitude be seen going up from its hamlets" 
" to the house of God with the voice of joy and praise." 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS; ETC. 



285 



Where human fiends on midnight errands Walk 
And bathe in brains the murderous tomahawk ; 
There shall the flocks on thymy pasture stray, 
And shepherds dance at summer's opening day; 
Each wandering genius of the lonely glen 
Shall start to view the glittering haunts of men, 
And silent watch, on woodland heights around, 
The village curfew as it tolls profound Campbell. 

On reaching the bark-hut, which was then dignified 
with the name of "the Post -Office/' the bright vision 
of the future which the sounding of the postman's horn 
had thus so suddenly conjured up, was in some mea- 
sure realized : for I there found a Scotchman who had 
that day come a journey of about thirty-five miles on 
horseback for a month's letters and papers for his mas- 
ter, whose station was at that distance off, towards the 
mountains, from this central point in the great wilder- 
ness of Australia. 

Perhaps also my vivid recollections of the Honey- 
suckle Creek Station on that occasion had made me 
more sensible of the transformations which had been 
effected upon it by Mr. and Mrs, Scobie. It was then 
a bark-hut of the rudest description, tenanted by two 
or three young gentlemen from Scotland, who had 
recently commenced squatting, and who happened to 
have as their guest for the night, when I alighted at 
their door, a Scotch baronet's son, a young gentleman 
who was " roughing it" away in the same style some- 
where else in the surrounding wilderness. My fellow- 
countrymen, however, gave me a cordial welcome, and 
made me a tin potful* of that blessed beverage, tea, 
which seems to have been created expressly for the 
interior of Australia ; after which, as it was out of the 
ijuestion to think of going to bed, I sat dozing on a 
three-legged stool, which had been rudely manufactured 
with a hatchet, wrapped up in my boat-cloak and lean- 
ing over the fire till eleven o'clock — when the relentless 



* The word « cup" is not used « beyond the boundaries." the 
article itself being unknown. 



286 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



postman, who was a good deal behind his time, sum- 
moned me forth again to the forest and the darkness, 
and the pelting storm, by announcing that <; the mail 
was ready to start." The night that ensued was as 
dismal and dreary as possible. In the first place, our 
"larboard" lamp, as the sailors would call it, that is, the 
one on the left side, where I was sitting, went out. and 
we ran foul of a tree on that side, which got jammed so 
fast between the wheel and the shaft that we had both 
literally to put our $\ shoulders to the wheel" to clear 
the vehicle. Then the iron outrigger, by which the 
second horse was attached to the mail-carriage, broke 
off from the violent pulls which it required occasionally 
to drag the vehicle out of the deep ruts which had 
been furrowed up in; the bush-road by the rain ; and 
the postman, having no means of fixing it afresh, had 
to turn the horse loose into the forest to find his way 
back to the station as he best could, and to push on as 
fast as possible with the shaft horse. Our progress 
afterwards was necessarily very >low, and I walked the 
greater part of the stage to the Broken Eiver — nineteen 
miles — and thus passed one of the darkest and most 
cheerless nights I have ever experienced on land, in 
the forests of Australia. 

With comparatively few exceptions, the country 
maintained the same beautiful and picturesque charac- 
ter, as in the neighbourhood of Honeysuckle Creek, 
the whole way to the Gouiburn Kjver. to which the 
course was still Southerly. A few miles from Mr. 
Scobie's, the mail stopped in the grey morning at the 
Squatting Station of Mr. Holland, an English gentle- 
man, whose cottage is one of the neatest for a bachelor 
Squatter's that I have seen. It had lattice windows, 
evidently of English manufacture, with the panels of 
the same diamond pattern as Miss Drysdale's at Gee- 
long. Mr. Holland's station is one of the most roman- 
tic and picturesque on the whole route. It is bounded 
by a mountain-range, the summits of which seem 
castellated and turreted like the walls of an ancient 
city, the vast rocks of which they consist appearing as 



TEE NORTHEKX DISTRICTS, ETC. 



287 



if they had been squared beforehand by some Cyclopian 
architect, and afterwards piled upon each other with 
the utmost regularity, like a work of art. There is a 
fine valley or bottom at the foot of the range, and there 
seemed to be plenty of land in the neighbourhood for 
cultivation. I had been the only passenger by the 
mail from Yass ; but we picked up a second at Mr. 
Holland's — another Scotchman, and a Squatter in the 
vicinity, of course — who was going to Melbourne, but 
whose name I cannot at this moment recollect. 

"We changed horses at twenty-two miles from Honey- 
suckle Creek, and again at the Squatting Station of 
Messrs. Hughes, twenty-tw 7 o miles farther on, from 
whence the distance to the Goulburn River is twelve 
miles ; making the whole distance to that river fifty-six 
miles. Although the whole country along this route is 
of a superior character as a pastoral country, contain- 
ing much land also in various localities of the first 
quality for cultivation, the neighbourhood of Messrs. 
Hughes' station is decidedly the finest part of it in both 
respects. It has quite the character of a Ducal park. 
The very trees have an aristocratic air about them — 
stately and well-proportioned, and each demanding an 
acre for itself to grow on ; there being no jostling one 
another, as in the iron-bark forests near Sydney, where 
a tree of respectable size can scarcely get standing- 
room. My fellow-traveller and myself felt ourselves 
dwindle into absolute plebeians in such a vicinity, as 
we vainly endeavoured to shelter ourselves from the 
hot sun under a miserable shed till the postman had 
changed horses. We reached the Goulburn River at 
eleven o'clock a.m., with a good appetite for breakfast 
after our nine hours' morning drive. 

The Goulburn, according to Sir Thomas Mitchell, 
is sixty yards wide ; but it had certainly a larger vo- 
lume of water in it at the time I crossed it than any of 
the other three western rivers, the Murrumbidgee, the 
Hume, and the Ovens. There was a slight M fresh" or 
rise in it, however, at the time ; and shortly before it 
had been flooded and had torn up the ground so fear- 



288 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



fully in the line of a tributary creek or rivulet in the 
immediate vicinity of a recently-erected stone-built inn 
on its left bank, that I should be seriously apprehensive 
of its carrying the inn entirely away in some future 
inundation. The inn is the property of a respectable 
Scotchman of the name of Xicol, who keeps it himself, 
as well as the Post- Office for the District, and who 
very kindly would not allow me to pay a bill in his 
house. It is not for the paltry saving in the general 
expenditure of so long a journey, which an act of this 
kind implies, that I mention the circumstance, but for 
the kindly feeling which it manifests, and to show that 
there is warm blood still circling in the veins of these 
" brither Scots" at the uttermost ends of the earth. 

The Goulburn is really a noble river, although I 
should have liked it better with its native name.* It 



* During the administration of Governor Macquarie, every 
thing in New South Wales that required a name, from a man to 
a mountain, (as for instance the Rev. Macquarie Cowper, and the 
Macquarie Range) was sure to be called Macquarie ; but during 
that of his successor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, when the reins of 
Government were in reality held by the Colonial Secretary, Fre- 
derick Goulburn, Esq., a brother of the late Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, it became fashionable, as a piece of acceptable adulation 
of the Colonial powers that were, to call every thing Goulburn. 
There are thus, at least, two Goulburn Rivers in Australia, viz. 
The Goulburn River, one of the principal tributaries of the Hun- 
ter, and the Goulburn River in Phillipsland. The absurdity of 
such a system of nomenclature is self-evident. For my own part 
I disliked both the man and his measures, because I thought the 
latter were exceedingly arbitrary and heartless, and I could not 
therefore be supposed to like the name, staring one, as it did, in 
the face everywhere. In this state of feeling, I recollect writing 
a few stanzas in recommendation of the native names in the year 
1824, before Goulburn River, the second, was discovered and 
named by Messrs. Hovell & Hume, and of which the following 
was one : — 

I hate your Goulburn Downs and Goulburn Plains, 
And Goulburn River and the Goulburn Range, 

And Mount Goulburn and Goulburn Vale ! One's brains 
Are turned with Goulburns. Vile scorbutic mange 

For immortality ! Had 1 the reins 

Of Government a fortnight, I would change 

These Government appellatives, and give 

The country names that should deserve to live. 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 289 



has a course of about a hundred miles above the cross- 
ing-place from its sources in the Snowy Mountains, and 
it falls into the Hume River about a hundred miles 
lower down. It is settled, in the squatting sense of 
the phrase, up to its sources. There is a good deal of 
bad land, and consequently but few Squatters towards 
its mouth ; but it is occupied a good way down. 
There is a Government Township, called Seymour, 
on the right bank at the crossing-place ; but, as in the 
case of the Hume River, it is not yet definitively fixed 
where the great route to the northward will cross the 
Goulburn. In a country so generally level as Phillips- 
land, especially in the present age of rapid communi- 
cation, the principal crossing-place will doubtless be 
fixed where the best line of route for a railway from 
Melbourne to the Hume River and the country be- 
yond it would strike the Goulburn, and this point has 
yet to be ascertained by an accurate survey of the 
whole route. There is evidently much less of that de- 
scription of country which prevails so extensively on 
the Hume and the Murrumbidgee — I mean alluvial 
plains, on the banks of this river — than on those of 
Australian rivers generally, judging of it from the vi- 
cinity of the present crossing-place ; but I confess I 
know very little of the character of the river either 
above or below that point. There is plenty of land, 
however, of the first quality for cultivation, and above 
the reach of all floods, in the Goulburn River District. 

The mail started again at two o'clock, p.m., the first 
stage from the Goulburn to the Sugar-Loaf Creek be- 
ing only nine miles. The country in this neighbour- 
hood is hilly and exceedingly picturesque ; the hills 
being richly covered with grass, and the soil a fine 
black mould. There is an inn at this station, kept by 
Mr. Peter Young, a respectable Scotch emigrant, who 
had found his way to the vicinity of the Goulburn 
River in Phillipsland, from that of Goulburn Plains in 
I New South Wales, where he had been settled for some 
years before as Superintendent of an extensive pastoral 
establishment. Mr. Young is a man of good educa- 

T 



290 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



tion, of extensive reading, of strong natural abilities, 
and quite an enthusiast for every thing Scotch. I need 
scarcely add, therefore, that on my two former jour- 
neys I had been passed on from his house " Scot free." 
On reaching it on the present occasion, I stood very 
much in need of some of his " cordials :" for imme- 
diately after leaving the Goulburn Biver, I had expe- 
rienced a return of my former illness, doubtless from 
the same cause — exposure to the hot sun — and I felt 
so completely broken-down when I reached the inn, 
that I had predetermined to proceed no farther at that 
time, and Mr. Young very kindly offered, if I re- 
mained, to drive me in to Melbourne himself. But 
a glass of Highland whisky toddy, which he prepared 
for me while the postman was changing horses, re- 
vived me so much, that as I was anxious to reach Mel- 
bourne on Friday morning, and unwilling to over- 
tax Mr. Young's kindness, I resolved to proceed by 
the mail. Like everybody else in this country, Mr. 
Young has had sheep and cattle, and been a squatter 
on his own account all along ; and when I saw him last 
he was on the eve of giving up his inn, and attending 
exclusively to his stock. 

The next stage, from Sugar-Loaf Creek to Kilmore, 
is sixteen miles. There is a pretty extensive tract of 
splendid agricultural country in this vicinity, but as 
yet only a very limited extent of cultivation. The Go- 
vernment have projected the formation of a town at 
Kilmore : it seems well suited for the purpose, from its 
distance both from the Goulburn River and from Mel- 
bourne. It possesses, at all events, the two grand re- 
quisites of good land and good water. The sites of 
most inland towns, however, in this new country, ought 
decidedly to be determined by the future course of the 
o-reat lines of railway-communication for which it is so 
admirably adapted, and which will doubtless, ere long, 
be carried through it in various directions. A town 
favourably situated on one of these lines, and possessing 
in an equal degree the other requisites of an inland town, 
will advance both in population and in importance with 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



291 



tenfold rapidity, as compared with any other town not 
so situated. 

The next stage, from Kilmore to Kinlochewe, where 
the mail rests for the night, is twenty-two miles. A 
few miles from Kilmore the road crosses a steep moun- 
tain ridge, but of no great elevation ; and on reaching 
the highest part of the road across it, the postman, a 
very intelligent and obliging young man, observed, as 
I happened to make some observation on the scenery 
we were passing, that there was a fine view of the sur- 
rounding country to be had from the top of the Big 
Hill — a lofty eminence then close on our right — and 
offered, if I wished it, to drive up to the top of it. 
Whether this was in perfect accordance with the regu- 
lations for the transmission of Her Majesty's Royal 
Mail through the forests of Australia, I did not stop to 
inquire, but immediately took the postman at his word ; 
and we accordingly drove up — letter-bags and all — 
to the very summit of the hill, where the splendid view 
of the Mount Macedon, and other mountain-ranges on 
the one hand, and the great extent of beautiful cham- 
paign country between these ranges, and as far as the 
great inlet of Port Phillip on the other, amply justi- 
fied the taste and discernment of the postman. The 
native cherry-tree, a tree somewhat like the cypress in 
its outline and vegetation, and always indicating land 
of superior quality for cultivation, is very frequent on 
this part of the route. 

Observing, at a little distance to the left, on this part 
of our course, two beautiful grassy hills of a perfectly 
conical shape, it struck me at the moment that they 
were both of volcanic origin. If I had been on horse- 
back, I should certainly have ascended one of them to 
ascertain the fact ; but as I could not think of practis- 
ing upon the good nature of the postman, I did not 
mention the circumstance ; and as I had not then visit- 
ed the Mount Macedon district, or seen the numerous 
volcanic cones of the Western Plains, I was rather dis- 
trustful of my own judgment in the matter. Happen- 
ing, however, to meet with a Scotch gentleman from 



292 



PHILLIPSLAXB. 



Glasgow, who has a Squatting Station in this neigh- 
bourhood, on board the steamboat on my way to 
Geelong, I mentioned that I had been struck with the 
appearance of these hills, and that I had supposed 
them to be of volcanic origin. The gentleman I refer 
to informed me that I was quite right in my conjecture, 
as there was a crater in perfect preservation on one of 
them. They seem to be connected with the Mount 
Macedon centre of volcanic agency, and were probably 
concerned in the production of the vast accumulations 
of igneous rocks along the Merri-Merri and Darabin 
Creeks, to the northward of Melbourne. But the whole 
of the country in that direction, as far as the G-oul- 
burn River, is decidedly of volcanic origin, or rather 
has been the theatre of extensive volcanic action. The 
beautiful hills in the neighbourhood of the Sugar-Loaf 
Creek are evidently of trap formation. 

There is a magnificent tract of country on this part 
of the course called Mercer's Yale. It is a grassy 
plain of ten or twelve miles in extent, almost complete- 
ly destitute of timber, and surrounded in great mea- 
sure by hills of moderate elevation, and distant moun- 
f tain-ranges. It was one of the earliest discoveries in 
the country, and was named for one of the principal 
members of the Van Dieman's Land Association. I 
should think the land scarcely equal in quality to the 
Western Plains of the first class, but greatly superior 
for cultivation to those of the second. 

" The sun had gone down o'er the lofty Benlomond," 
(if there is a mountain of that name in Phillipsland, as 
there is in Yan Dieman's Land, as well as in Scot- 
land,) ere we reached the inn at Kinlochewe, after a 
long day's journey of a hundred and three miles. It 
is kept by a Mr. Budd, a respectable Scotchman, who, 
on one of my former journeys overland, after I had 
spent a night at his house, and had asked him for my 
bill in the morning before starting again, smiled and 
told me very politely, that I owed him nothing, and 
" that he only regretted his house was not more com- 
fortable." I had found it particularly comfortable, and 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS^ ETC. 



293 



could only blush at so unexpected a mark of kindly 
feeling, on the part of a fellow-countryman whom I had 
never seen before, in reply. On the present occasion 
I had probably acquired a little more brass, perhaps 
from having got somewhat " used to it," and therefore 
although I anticipated a repetition of the same treat- 
ment, in which I was not mistaken, I resigned myself 
calmly to my fate. There is really a great deal of 
fine genuine Scottish feeling in this land. I have 
never seen so much anywhere else. 

There is a splendid tract of agricultural land in this 
vicinity, of the hill and dale, or undulating character, 
chiefly the property of James Malcolm, Esq., whom I 
have already taken the liberty to introduce to the 
reader. There is a small extent of purchased land at 
Kilmore, and a Special Survey (or purchase of five 
thousand acres, at a pound an acre) has been taken a 
little way beyond that locality ; but there is as yet no 
other purchased land on this route that I am aware of 
beyond Kinlochewe. Mr. Malcolm's residence is on 
the side of a hill within a mile of the inn ; his land is 
all divided into paddocks by strong post and rail-fen- 
ces, and is cultivated quite in the English, or rather 
Scotch style ; and his barn-yard in 1843, the only time 
I had an opportunity of seeing his place, would have 
done honour to any farming-establishment at home. 
I made a memorandum of the extent of his cultivation 
at that time, which greatly exceeded that of any other 
colonist in Phillipsland, but I have unfortunately mis- 
laid it. But besides being the most extensive cultiva- 
tor of the soil, Mr. Malcolm is also one of the most 
extensive proprietors of sheep, cattle, and horses in the 
colony. In short, like old Galoesus, the Italian, al- 
though he has not quite so many ploughs at work, it is 
otherwise literally true of him, — 

Ditissimus arvis ; 
Quinque greges illi balantum, quina redibant 
Armenta, et terram centum vertebat aratris. 

Virg. JEn. vii. 539. 

Five herds, five bleating flocks, bis pastures fili'd, 

His lands a hundred yoke of oxen till'd. 

Dry den. 



294 



PHILLIPSL AND. 



The land in this neighbourhood consists of a rich 
brownish loam ; the crops have never failed from 
drought, and the increase is most abundant. Although 
a large proprietor of stock, Mr. Malcolm is one of 
those who think that the cultivation of the soil will pay 
industrious people well in Phillipsland ; and surely he 
ought to know. The soil in this vicinity seems equally 
adapted for agriculture and horticulture, both vege- 
tables and fruit-trees growing splendidly, as well as 
grain and potatoes. 

The mail started again on the 23rd at daybreak ; 
the route for the first five miles being across thinly 
wooded grassy plains. At eight miles from Kinloch- 
ewe the road passes through a rich agricultural tract, 
inhabited chiefly by settlers from Scotland, called 
Campbelifield, where the first place of worship to be 
seen on the whole route from Yass is situated. It is a 
Presbyterian church, of a neat and becoming exterior, 
erected by the Scotch settlers of the neighbourhood, 
with assistance to an amount equal to their united sub- 
scriptions from the Public Treasury.* It w r as pecu- 



* Had the Half- Way people in New South Wales and Port 
Phillip been only honest men, and declared themselves at once 
immediately after the Disruption in Scotland, there is no ques- 
tion but that every minister and congregation adhering to the 
Free Church would have been allowed to retain not only the ec- 
clesiastical edifice, but the Government salary attached to the 
situation it represented ; for public opinion was too strong in the 
colony, and the Establishment principle, which professes to treat 
all denominations alike, too weak to allow of a minister and con- 
gregation to be dispossessed in the way in which so many were at 
that time dispossessed in Scotland. The Legislative Council, I 
know well, from having been one of its members at the time, and 
therefore well acquainted with the feelings of its leading men, 
would most certainly have, in such an event, interposed for the 
protection of the Free Church ministers and congregations, by a 
change of the present colonial law, which binds both churches 
and salaries to the Church of Scotland, as by law established. 
But the pretended Free Churchmen in the Colony lost the pro- 
per time for action, and remained in the communion of the State 
Church till they had made both themselves and their cause ut- 
terly contemptible. It will be vain for the Free Church to at- 



THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS, ETC. 



295 



Marly interesting to me, as well from the circumstance 
of its being the first place of worship to be seen in 
Phillipsland in coming from the northward, as from the 
fact of the last I had seen in New South Wales having 
been a Romish edifice. If Popery is to overrun and 
appropriate the latter of these Colonies, as its ambitious 
and fiery zealots are already predicting, may God 
grant that the splendid province of Phillipsland may 
be rescued from its hateful and intolerable grasp, and 
become a grand and fruitful source of genuine Scrip- 
tural Protestant influence for the Southern Hemis- 
phere ! This consummation, I confess, is the object I 
have uniformly had in view in the long exploratory 
journeys I have been describing through that magnifi- 
cent Province, as well as in the preparation of this vo- 
lume for the press, and in the long and dreary voyage 
which is now, I trust, hastening to its close ; for after 
a third dismal week of violent north-easterly gales 
at the mouth of the English Channel, the wind has 
at length (December 18) become fair, and we expect to 
strike soundings to-morrow. 

The road to Melbourne, from Campbellfield, traver- 
ses the fertile and picturesque district of the Moonee- 
Moonee Ponds, and the postman's horn announced our 
arrival in the capital of Phillipsland, at seven o'clock 
on Friday morning, the distance from Kinlochewe be- 
ing eighteen miles. The whole distance from Sydney 



tempt to secure either the churches or the salaries now. For 
my own part I am not sorry at such a consummation ; but it will 
surely serve to show the Free Churchmen at home how utterly 
worthless, as men for such an emergency, were the men w T hom 
they regarded, long before the Disruption, as their particular 
friends and favourites in New South Wales, and whom they be- 
lieved and trusted, and secretly encouraged, when misrepresent- 
ing and calumniating other and better men. In reality, these 
Half- Way Men were not friends but traitors to the Free Church. 
This little church at Campbellfield, for example, might have been 
secured for the Free Church without the slightest difficulty, 
whether the Government salary attached to it had been obtained 
or not ; but through the gross and traitorous misconduct of these 
drivelling incapables, it is irrecoverably lost to that Body, with 
all the others. 



296 



PHILLIP SLAXD. 



is as nearly as possible six hundred miles ; for some of 
the following distances are certainly under the mark, — - 



Route and Distances from Sydney to Melbourne. 



Sydney to Campbelltown, 


SB miles. 


Campbelltown to Berrima, 


47 " 


Berrima to Goulburn, .... 


40 " 


Goulburn to Yass, .... 


60 " 


Yass to Gundagai, on the Murrumbid^ee, 
Gundagai to Tarcotta Creek, 


66 " 


35 " 


Tarcotta Creek to Albury on the Hume, 


85 " 


Albury to the Ovens River, . 


50 " 


Ovens River to Honeysuckle Creek, 


53 " 


Honeysuckle Creek to Goulburn, 


56 5 


Goulburn River to Kilmore, 


25 " 


Kilmore to Kinlochewe, 


22 u 


Kinlochewe to Melbourne, . 


18 " 


Sydney to Melbourne, .... 


590 miles. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

CAPABILITIES OF PHILLIPSLAND FOR IMMEDIATE AND EXTENSIVE 
EMIGRATION. 

The greater portion of the available territory of Phil- 
lipsland is so lightly timbered as to afford, in its natu- 
ral state, excellent pasturage for sheep and cattle. It 
is this peculiarity of Australia generally that has given 
rise to what is technically styled " the Squatting Sys- 
tem/' and covered its hills and valleys with flocks and 
herds. " By this craft" of shepherding and cattle- 
grazing — a state of things totally unknown in the 
British Provinces of North America — the present co- 
lonists " have their wealth," independently altogether 
of the artificial produce of the soil. 

But such a state of things, however desirable for a 
new country, is not destined to be the permanent, as 
it is the actual condition of a large proportion of the 
population of Australia. The natural pasture, in any 
particular tract of country, can only support a certain 
number of sheep and cattle, and as soon, therefore, as 
the maximum amount of stock has been attained in any 
district, the produce of that district will remain station- 
ary, while the population continues steadily to increase. 
In many localities in New South Wales Proper, this 
maximum amount of stock has been reached already, 
and in such cases the produce from the natural pas- 
tures can only be increased by occupying new ground, 
or by moving northward, southward, or westward. 
Now, taking the amount of produce in wool to be 
20,000 bales for the whole territory of Philiipsland for 



298 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



the past year, and assuming the correctness of the 
estimate of my friend Dr. Thomson (which, I confess, 
I should take to be rather over than under the truth) 
that the Province is capable of producing ten times 
that amount, the maximum will be reached at the pre- 
sent rate of increase — 25 per cent, annually — in about 
twelve years ; and thenceforward the permanent occu- 
pation for the constantly increasing population will be 
the cultivation of the land. 

But as every Squatter naturally desires to provide 
for as large an increase of his flocks and herds as pos- 
sible, by occupying the largest possible extent of avail- 
able surface, a vast extent of country is very soon oc- 
cupied in the squatting sense of the term ; insomuch that 
it is difficult, if not actually impracticable, already, to 
find a new Squatting Station in the whole territory of 
Phillipsland. No wonder, therefore, that there should 
have been a prodigious hue and cry among the Squat- 
ters of New South Wales generally about " Fixity of 
Tenure," accompanied with a dismal account of the 
profitless nature of their occupation, and. of the many 
hardships and privations they were doomed to under- 
go — the real meaning of much of which, when " done 
into English," was simply, " we have got possession of 
the country, such as it is, and we wish to keep it." 
An able pamphlet on the Squatting question has been 
published lately by a namesake of mine, Gideon S. 
Lang, Esq., a Squatter in Phillipsland,* who seems, 
however, to take it for granted, that Port Phillip is a 
country intended by nature for Squatters only, and that 
the relations of land and labour of which it is capable 
are such only as can subsist under a universal Squatting 
system. Now, I have a much higher opinion of the 
destinies of the country than to suppose it intended by 
nature to be parcelled out into mere sheep-stations and 



* Land and Labour in Australia ; their Past, Present, and 
Future Connexion and Management considered, in a Letter ad- 
dressed to the Hon. Francis Scott, M.P. for Roxburgh, and 
Parliamentary Agent for New South Wales. Melbourne, 1845. 



CAPABILITIES FOE EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 299 



cattle-runs. On the contrary, I believe it to be pre- 
eminently adapted for the pursuits of agriculture, and 
for the settlement and maintenance of a numerous agri- 
cultural population. 

I have already alluded to a tract of volcanic country 
to the northward of Melbourne, as being eminently cal- 
culated, as well from its intrinsic quality as from its 
vicinity to the provincial capital, for the settlement of 
such a population. The districts of Western Port and 
Gippsiand present a peculiarly eligible field of a simi- 
lar kind; taking into consideration the comparative 
facility of establishing a regular expeditious and cheap 
communication by means of a steam-vessel between 
both of these districts and the principal market of the 
Province. But the South-western District, extending 
from Geelong westward to the present boundary of 
South Australia, is decidedly the most important of 
these localities, as well from the much greater extent of 
available land of the first quality for cultivation which it 
presents, as from the facility of establishing, at a com- 
paratively small cost, an eligible means of communica- 
tion with an important market. 

In confirmation of the statements I have made as 
the result of my own personal observation in the pre- 
ceding pages, in regard to the physical character and 
capabilities of this portion of the Colonial territory, I 
shall subjoin a few extracts from the evidence of cer- 
tain highly intelligent and competent persons, taken 
before a Select Committee of the Legislative Council 
of New South Wales on Immigration, of which I hap- 
pened to be a member, in the Session of 1845 : — 

Thursday, 28th August 1845. 
Present : — 

Charles Nicholson, Esq., M.D., in the Chair. 
The Auditor-General. The Colonial Secretary. 

Charles Cowper, Esq. Rev. Dr. Lang, 

Robert Lowe, Esq. Joseph Pheips Robinson, Esq. 

James Malcolm, Esq., called in and examined : — 
1. You are a settler at Port Phillip ? Both a squatter and 
settler ; perhaps the oldest squatter in the district. 



300 



PHILLIPSL AND. 



2. Do you consider the Colony, generally, a favourable field 
for immigration ? I do. 

3. More especially Port Phillip ? More particularly. 

4. What population do you think the district of Port Phillip is 
capable of supporting ? I cannot well answer that question ; I 
should say certainly a very large population. 

5. Do you think any given area in that district would support 
as large a population as a similar area in any part of Great 
Britain ? I think it would ; I have been through many parts of 
England — through the county of Kent and other agricultural 
counties — and also through Scotland, and I have seen in Port 
Phillip large tracts of land as rich as any I have seen in Great 
Britain. 

6. By Mr. Lowe — Equal to the best parts of Great Britain ? 
The district from Lake Colac, for about two hundred miles, is 
very rich ; I do not think there is richer land in any part of the 
world ; it is as good land as ever plough was put into. 

7. And already cleared ? Yes, there are thousands of acres 
adjoining Lake Colac clear of timber, and the richest land I 
ever walked or rode over ; it is about forty -five miles from Gee- 
long, between Geelong and Portland. 

8. By the Chairman — Is it well supplied with water ? Yes ; 
with streams and lakes, one of which is about twenty miles in 
circumference. 

9. You are of opinion, then, that the field is almost unlimited 
for the eligible settlement of immigrants I I should say so ; all 
the way to Port Fairy, and the Glenelg River, is as good as the 
part I have spoken of, taking the south side of the lakes ; the 
other side is not so good, but is a good grazing country. I have 
been over a tract of country extending from Lake Colac to 
Portland Bay, which I never saw the like of ; a great part of it 
is too rich for sheep. 

31. Do you think the district of Port Phillip would afford an 
eligible field for the settlement of small farmers, who might 
arrive with their families, bringing with them a small capital ? 
I think there is no part of the world where persons of that class 
could do better than in Port Phillip ; I am agent for several 
gentlemen who have lands in that district, and let out a consider- 
able portion in small farms ; many of my shepherds, after they 
have been a few years in service, have saved perhaps one hun- 
dred or two hundred pounds, and turned farmers on their own 
account. 

32. By the Colonial Secretary — Is the tract of country, of 
which you have spoken, on the borders of Lake Colac, subject 
to drought ? No, there are regular rains ; it was nine years last 
May since I w r ent to Port Phillip, and during that time we have 
always had regular rains ; I have a farm within sixteen miles of 
Melbourne, from which I have had during the last four years 
excellent crops. 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 301 



33. What description of grain did you grow principally ? 
Wheat, barley, and oats ; we also grew potatoes. 

34. By the Chairman — What is the average quantity of wheat 
you obtain from your land \ It has averaged thirty bushels an 
acre. 

35. By the Colonial Secretary — And the barley ? Upwards 
of forty. 

38. Is the barley grown by you suitable for malt ? Yes, T 
have sold it for the last three years to Mr. Condell, late M.C., 
a brewer in Melbourne ; it averaged by weight fifty-three pounds 
a bushel. 

39. What is the weight of wheat per bushel ? It is sold at 
sixty pounds to the bushel, but it often weighs more. 

40. Comparing the quality of grain grown at Launceston with 
that grown by you at Port Phillip, what is the difference % We 
have grown as good wheat this year as I ever saw grown in Van 
Dieman's Land. 

41. By Captain Dumaresq— Do you find a sale for your oats \ 
A very ready sale ; when I left Melbourne there was hardly a 
bushel to be had. 

42. By the Colonial Secretary — In your district what extent 
of land do you consider applicable to agriculture ? In addition to 
the land I have mentioned (from Lake Colac westward), there 
is plenty of land all round Geelong and Melbourne (thousands of 
acres) as rich as any land I have ever seen. 

43. Is it a part of the Colony capable of supporting a dense 
population % It could support an immense number of persons ; 
richer laud never crow flew over than that in some parts of Port 
Phillip. 

45. By the Auditor-General — Have you calculated at what 
price per bushel you could afford to grow wheat ? It would pay 
well if we could get five shillings a bushel for it. 

46. By Mr. Cowper — Do you not think persons who cultivated 
their own lands with the assistance of their families could afford 
to sell it for less % Yes, I think it would pay them as well at four 
shillings as it would pay me at five shillings. A man having the 
assistance of the members of his own family only in working his 
farm, can raise grain at a much cheaper rate than persons who 
pay for labour. 

78. By the Auditor-General — Do you know many instances 
where immigrants who have come out as labourers have suc- 
ceeded in establishing themselves as farmers, stockholders, or 
land-ownersi? Yes, several men in my own employ have done so. 

79. Are there numerous instances of that kind ? I have 
known a good many. 

80. By Dr. Lang-^-Are there not some instances, at Port 
Phillip, of persons who have come out in the class of immigrants 
who have accumulated, from the high rate of wages, so much as 
to be able to buy their masters' property \ I have known some 



302 



PHILLIP 5L AND. 



instances where, if the servant has not been able to buy his 
master's property, he has been able to buy sheep, and to com- 
mence on his own account. The best man for the squatter was 
he who went into the town, and spent his money as fast as he 
earned it, for he had then to come back again either to his for- 
mer master or to some one else ; there is not a shepherd in the 
district who might not have been his own master if he had saved 
his money. 

81. Do you think, if there was a continuous flow of immigra- 
tion into the Colony, that unfortunate state uf things would be 
prevented ? I think so. 

82. In such a case, do you think it would be desirable that 
persons who commenced as servants should become holders of 
sheep and cattle on their own account ? I think so. 

83. By Mr. Robinson — You think if the labouring population, 
generally, in Port Phillip, were to abstain from extravagance, 
they might become independent ? They might all become so ; 
I have known many immigrants who have saved money and 
taken farms : I have also known not a few instances of persons 
of this class clubbing together for the purchase of sheep or other 
stock, till they were able to divide it, and go each upon his own 
hand ; in one instance, two brothers joined together, and pur- 
chased a few sheep ; one shepherded, while the other kept the 
hut ; they thus managed the sheep between them, and they are 
now men of property ; the men [expiree convicts] from Van 
Dieman's Land very seldom save money. 



Friday, 29th August 184o. 
Present : — 

Charles Nicholson, Esq., M.D., in the Chair. 
The Auditor- General. Dr. Lang. 

Mr. Cowper. Mr. Lowe. 

Captain Dumaresq. Mr. Murray. 

Thomas Walker, Esq. (one of the original Representatives of 
Port Phillip), called in and examined : — 

1. You have resided in this Colony for a number of years ! 
For upwards of twenty years. 

2. And have had opportunities of becoming extensively ac- 
quainted with the character and wants of the country ? Yes. 

3. Do you consider this Colony a favourable field for immigra- 
tion generally ? I certainly do. 

4. Do you think it capable of supporting a considerable popu- 
lation ] I do. 

5. What parts of the Colony would you particularize, as pre- 
senting the most eligible localities for settling immigrants I 
Throughout the interior a considerable population may be main- 
tained by pastoral pursuits ; and the coast districts are capable 



CAPABILITIES FOB EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 303 



of maintaining a very large agricultural population ; — there is a 
great variety of climate. 

6. Are there not large alluvial tracts on the banks of some of 
the larger rivers of this Colony which would support a very 
numerous population % Undoubtedly there are. 

7. Could you specify them % There are large alluvial tracts, 
beginning at the northern part of the Colony, on the banks of the 
Brisbane, and other rivers in the Moreton Bay District ; then 
there is the Richmond River, the Clarence River, the Nanbuckra 
River, and their various tributaries ; coming along towards the 
south, there are the Macleay, the Maria, the Wilson, the Hast- 
ings, the Manning, and the Hunter Rivers. 

8. What do you think of the valley of the Murray, the largest 
of our rivers, two thousand miles long ? That is in the interior. 

9. Then there is the Bega country 1 Yes, and I could not 
think of finishing my enumeration of agricultural tracts without 
including Australia Felix, in which district there is an immense 
extent of country suitable for agricultural purposes, and for the 
maintenance of a dense population, and which has been so well 
described by Sir Thomas Mitchell, the Surveyor-General of the 
Colony, as " a region more extensive than Great Britain, equally 
rich in point of soil, which now lies ready for the plough in many 
parts, as if specially prepared by the Creator for the industrious 
hands of Englishmen and there is the whole of Gipps' Land, 
of a similar character. 

10. You have seen various parts of the globe — do you think 
the district of Port Phillip (Australia Felix) is equal to the 
average of European countries, with respect to its capability of 
supporting a population % Yes, in point of soil ; the great draw- 
back is the deficiency of surface water. The country, in my 
opinion, is capable of maintaining a much larger population than 
we are likely to have in it for centuries to come ; and when it 
has been peopled to a certain point, artificial means will be re- 
sorted to to secure an adequate supply of water. 

47. By Dr. Lang — Have you travelled over any considerable 
portion of the Port Phillip district ? I have. 

48. What is your opinion of the eligibility of that country for 
the settlement of an agricultural population % I think it is par- 
ticularly well adapted for an agricultural population ; the climate 
is better there than in this part of the Colony ; they have more 
rain. 

49. Do you think if any arrangement could be made for the 
introduction of families at their own cost, to establish themselves 
in that district as small farmers, they might grow grain for ex- 
portation with success \ Yes, I think it is very probable they 
could, as so much of the land there is naturally clear and fertile, 
requiring but little expenditure of capital to render it productive. 

50. Comparatively speaking, then, you would say they might 
be brought out, and might occupy land to any extent I Yes, the 



304 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



climate is fine, and the wants of a rural population would be few ; 
they would be content with moderate returns ; their condition 
would be far better than that of a vast number of people at 
home. 



Tuesday, 2d September 1845. 

Present 

Charles Nicholson, Esq., M.D., in the Chair. 
The Auditor- General. Rev. Dr. Lang. 

Charles Cowper, Esq. Robert Lowe, Esq. 

Philip Holland, Esq., called in and examined : — 

1. You have been a resident in Port Phillip for some time 1 
Yes, for five years. 

2. Have you been engaged in pastoral or agricultural pursuits ! 
Pastoral, during the whole of that period. 

3. Would you state your opinion as to the capability of the 
Colony for immigration generally ? The district of Port Phillip 
is a splendid field for immigration; I think the soil able to main- 
tain a dense population, and the climate highly favourable. 

4. Are you acquainted with England generally ? I have tra- 
velled a great deal in England. 

5. Would you compare the province of Australia Felix, in 
point of apparent fertility, with any district in England, or with 
England generally ? I am of opinion that the western district 
of Port Phillip is capable of supporting as dense a population as 
any part of England. 

6. Do you think the climate favourable ? Highly. 

7. By the Auditor-General — Have you experienced any in- 
convenience from the dryness of the climate ? Not the least. 

15. By the Chairman — Do you not think it would be desirable 
to introduce a class of persons, such as the small yeomanry of 
England, who would cultivate farms of perhaps two hundred 
acres extent, by the labour of their own hands and that of their 
families ? It would be a splendid field for them. 

22. From what you know of the capabilities of this country, of 
its soil and climate, do you think there would be any doubt of the 
ultimate success of a farmer with a small capital, and a farm of 
say one hundred and fifty or two hundred acres, cultivated by 
himself and his family ? I think such a person would do well, 
that his position would be materially improved by emigrating to 
Port Phillip. 

23. Would you look upon the present low value of agricultu- 
ral produce as calculated to interfere with the prosperity of small 
farmers ? No. 

24. By the Auditor-General — Do you think they could rai*e 
wheat at such a price as to make it pay to send to England I I 
feel certain they could. 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 305 



25. At what price could a family, the father and sons'working 
the land, be able to raise wheat ? On exceedingly low terms, on 
account of their cultivating the ground themselves ; they would 
be at very little expense. 

26. By the Chairman — Is not the ground actually already 
cleared ? To a great extent it is ready tor the plough, and is as 
fertile land as any in the world. 



Thursday, 4th September 1845. 

Present :— 

Charles Nicholson, Esq., M.D., in the Chair. 

The Auditor- General. Rev. Dr. Lang. 

Charles Cowper, Esq. | Robert Lowe, Esq. 

John Dobie, Esq., Surgeon, R.N., called in and examined :-— 

1. You are a settler on the Clarence River ? I am. 

2. And have been engaged in pastoral pursuits for some years ? 
Yes. 

3. During which time you have had occasion to employ a 
number of shepherds and farm -servants ? Yes. 

4. You have seen a considerable part of the Colony, I believe, 
have you not % Yes, both the northern and southern parts of the 
Colony. 

5. Will you state to the committee what you consider to be the 
capabilities of the Colony as a field for immigration from Europe 
— what advantage does it hold out to the immigrant ? I think it 
holds out many advantages, inasmuch as it not only provides him 
with a comfortable competence, but with the means of becoming 
comparatively opulent. 

6. Do you think that the labouring man may, by the exercise 
of industry, sobriety, and prudence, put by a sufficiency to main- 
tain him during old age without labour ? I do. 

7. By the Auditor- General — Do you consider any climate in 
the world to be superior to this \ I do not ; for I have been in 
almost every country in Europe, in the East Indies, and in North 
and South America. 

27. By Dr. Lang — Have you visited any of the British colonies 
of North America % Yes. 

28. What do you think of the comparative advantages to free 
immigrants coming to this Colony, or going to any of these \ 
'ihe advantages this country holds out to the immigrant are far 
beyond those presented by the North American colonies ; the 
two countries caunot be compared in point of climate ; here we 
have a splendid climate and mild weather, instead of a long 
dreary winter ; there the people suffer very many privations. I 
have been in North America when the people could not work 
for six or eight months in the year ; during the greater part of 

U 



306 



PIIILLIPSLAND. 



that time the country was covered with snow ; in this country 
there is no interruption to a man's labour. 

29. Which of these colonies have you been in % Canada, New 
Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and also in the United States. 

30. Do you think an immigrant coming to this country, and 
hiring himself out as a servant, has a much better prospect of 
establishing himself comfortably on his own accoimt, within a 
limited period, than he would have in any of these North Ameri- 
can colonies ? There cannot be a question about it. 

31. And also as to the prospect of acquiring wealth ultimately ? 
Yes, the article of clothing is very expensive in North America, 
but that is a very trifling expense to men here ; the expense of 
clothing in North America would take up half a man's wages ; 
the article of clothing is almost the only expense a man is put to 
in this Colony. 

32. Do you not think that the advantage to the immigrant of 
having his labour made available for the cultivation of the ground 
for the whole year in this Colony, is of great importance ? There 
cannot be a doubt upon this point. 

33. Can two crops be obtained in the most favourable situa- 
tions of the North American colonies during their short summer ? 
No, that is quite impossible in North America, inasmuch as the 
summer is not above three or four months in duration ; we may 
have two crops in this Colony. 

36. Do yon consider the condition of the shepherd a comfort- 
less one ? Certainly not ; I think it is a very comfortable and 
easy life ; a man has a comfortable hut, his rations are regularly 
supplied him, and he has no laborious work. 

37. And it affords him a prospect of a comfortable independ- 
ence ? Yes, T have now men in my employment who have pur- 
chased mares, and these mares are in the course of producing 
stock ; these men have been only a short time with me, but have 
saved their wages. 

38. Are you aware whether it is generally the case that shep - 
herds are possessed of stock, to a greater or less extent ? They 
are principally possessed of horses ; their great object is to get a 
mare ; there are a great many of my men who have got money 
in the Savings' Bank ; I seldom come to Sydney without paving 
money into the Savings' Bank on account of my men. 

39. By the Auditor-General — Do you find the shepherds em- 
ployed by you generally save their earnings ? Some do, and it 
is within the compass of all to do so, for they are furnished with 
everything excepting clothes and tobacco, and they are clothed 
with very little cost ; but some are indifferent about it. 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 307 



Friday, 5th September 1845. 

Preterit : — 

Charles Nicholson, Esq., M.D., in the Chair. 
The Colonial Secretary. The Auditor-General. 

Charles Cowper. Esq. Rev. Dr. Lang. 

Robert Lowe, Esq. J. P. Robinson, Esq. 

William Dumaresq, Esq., M.C., examined : — 

1 . You have resided in the Colony for a number of years, I 
believe % Yes, nearly twenty years. 

2. You have had considerable experience of the Colony as to 
its general character and capabilities ? Yes. 

3. You have been engaged to a considerable extent in agricul- 
tural and pastoral pursuits ? In pastoral pursuits I have. 

4. Are you able to speak of the character of the Colony in re- 
spect to the prospects of emigrants to this Colony, as compared 
with the prospects of persons emigrating to Canada ? I consider 
this to be one of the most favourable countries I have seen for 
the purposes of emigration. I was three years in Canada, and 
was not by any means pleased with that country as one holding 
out favourable prospects for emigrants. I formed that opinion 
principally from the consideration, that during more than half 
the year the ground is covered with snow, so that field-operations 
cannot be carried on, and during all that time of comparative 
idleness men acquire habits not advantageous to them as settlers. 
I was employed with my company of the Royal Staff Corps in 
making the Canal of the Ottawa, to which work the Government 
sent all the emigrants that arrived at that time. The workmen 
were all discharged in the month of October or November, and 
from that time till about May no works were carried on. Dur- 
ing this interval of time the recently arrived settlers could do 
n othing but fell the trees on their little plots of ground, and build 
their huts as the snow disappeared. They planted their potatoes, 
and came again to the Canal works for employment in the sum- 
mer. This country, on the contrary, is open for the constant 
employment of labour all the year round. It was in the year 
1819 I went first to Canada. 

5. By Mr. Lowe — Is the summer as hot in Canada as it is 
here ? No, I should not say it was. 

6. Is the heat of the summer there a damp or a dry heat ; is 
it oppressive ? It is very hot during the day and oppressive, 
from the rapid evaporation of a moist surface. 

7. The Spring and Autumn are short, are they not ? Yes, 
very short. 

It was the statements contained in the former part 
of this evidence, as to the superior capabilities of the 
Western portion of the Port Phillip District as a field 



308 PHILLIP SL AND, 



for extensive emigration, that induced me to visit that 
portion of the territory during the past year ; and it 
occurred to me, as I have already observed, on tra- 
versing the Plains, that all that was requisite for the 
opening up of that splendid tract of country for the 
speedy and comfortable settlement of a numerous agri- 
cultural population — in the event of there being any 
previous arrangement for the introduction of such a 
population from the mother-country — would be to 
construct, with the indigenous timber of the country, a 
Tram-road or Wooden Railway, either for horse or for 
steam power, across the Plains, according as the coun- 
try should be progressively settled to the westward. 
And on my return to Sydney I addressed the follow- 
ing series of Questions on the general character and 
capabilities of the country, as well as on the practica- 
bility of this particular proposal for rendering it exten- 
sively available for the purposes of man, to my friend 
and fellow-traveller, Dr. Thomson, who accordingly 
sent me the subjoined replies : — 

Questions proposed to Alexander Thomson, Esq. of Geelong, late 
Member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales for 
the District of Port Phillip, with the Answers subjoined. 

1. What is your opinion of the capabilities of the country ex- 
tending from Geelong to the Glenelg River, for the settlement of 
an agricultural population from the mother-country, 1st, As to 
extent ; 2d, As to quality of soil ; 3d, As to facilities for bring- 
ing it into a state of cultivation ; ith, As to a permanent supply 
of wood and water ; and 5th, As to the means it affords of com- 
munication with ports and markets \ 

I am of opinion that this country is admirably adapted for the 
settlement and maintenance of a numerous agricultural popula- 
tion from the mother-country ; in fact, this is universally ad- 
mitted. 1st, As to extent A route from Geelong by the Lakes, 
and through Port Fairy District by the Grange, to the junction 
of the Wannon with the Glenelg, is about 200 miles in length, 
and about 25 in breadth, or 3.200,000 acres. 2d, As to quality 
of soil :— The whole of this tract of country is as fine land as any 
in the world; the soil is a rich black vegetable mould, and in places 
that fine reddish soil formed by decomposed lava, all equally 
productive, and has produced the most abundant crops of grain 
wherever it has been tried. 3d, As to facilities for cultivation : — 
It is nearly all ready for the plough, and our seed-time extends 
over a period of six months, while in England it is only six or 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 309 



seven weeks — there you have to plough the land three times, here 
only once — there you can only crop wheat once in three years, 
here every year. Thirty-five bushels of wheat is the average 
produce of the district ; I saw a crop of oats at Lake Colac, which 
measured 90 bushels to the acre. 4th, As to wood and water : — 
There is permanent wood and water at convenient distances 
along the whole line. 5th, As to markets : — There is no means 
of communication with ports or markets at present, to render 
this fine country available for the purposes to which it is evident- 
ly destined by Divine Providence ; for Portland Bay, Port Fairy, 
and Lady Bay (the township which Mr. Lati obe has called Mer- 
ri, 20 miles to the E. of Port Fairy) are mere open road-steads, 
and too much exposed to the Southern Ocean to become safe 
shipping ports, and the distance to Geelong precludes for the pre- 
sent the legitimate use of the soil. 

2. What is your opinion as to the general adaptation of this 
Western Country for the construction of a wooden railway 
across its whole length, to open up the country for the settlement 
of an industrious agricultural population, to establish an eligible 
means of communication with either extremity of the line for the 
conveyance of passengers and produce, and thereby to give in- 
creased value to the land ? 

There is here every facility for the construction of railways — no 
obstacles to contend with, not a single elevation to cut, a few 
bridges only will be necessary, and the expense will be compara- 
tively small from the abundance of hard wood at convenient dis- 
tances along the line. A railway would open up the country for 
the settlement of a numerous population, and establish an eli- 
gible means of communication for the conveyance of passengers, 
live stock, wool, and other produce, the amount of which it is im- 
possible for any one to calculate, and would greatly increase the 
value of the land. A branch to the places above mentioned, 
viz. Portland, Port Fairy, and Lady Bay, would command all the 
trade of these townships. 

3. What do you think could the material for the construction 
of a wooden railway, either for horses or for steam, be furnished 
for along the whole line, supposing the sleepers to consist of 
stringy bark or other hard wood, and to be nine feet in length 
and six inches square, and the longitudinal planking for the rail 
to be any length to suit the convenience of the contractor, and 
six inches broad, and four or six deep — I mean, what could sleep- 
ers of the said dimensions be furnished for at so much per thou- 
sand, and what would the longitudinal planking cost per hundred 
running feet \ 

The sleepers will cost per thousand £70, and the longitudinal 
planking per hundred running feet 15s.* 

I * I may add that I have obtained the following additional es- 
timates. Longitudinal sleepers, 18 inches face and 8 inches deep, 



310 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



4. What do you think would be the value of the average good 
land, per acre, along this whole extent of country within three 
or four miles from the railway on either side, supposing such a 
means of conveyance for goods and passengers were to be provid- 
ed, either for horses at ten, or for steam-carriages at fifteen miles 
an hour ? 

From 30s. to 40s. an acre. 

5. Be so good as state at what rates respectively land has been 
sold by Government in different localities in which it has been 
actually purchased to the westward of Geelong. 

From 20s. to 45s. an acre. 

6. Be so good also as state whether there are any tenants of 
small farms in the neighbourhood of Geelong, what is the usual 
extent of the farms they rent, and what rent they generally pay 
either in money or in kind ; as also, whether they are doing ell 
on such terms ? 

Yes, a great many ; farms from 70 to 100 acres ; the average 
money rent is 7s. per acre, some pay two bushels of wheat per 
acre ; they are all doing well. I have visited many of them 
lately, they seem happy and contented, and express themselves 
satisfied provided their rents are not raised, which they seem to 
dread. 

7. Is not the land in various localities to the westward of Gee- 
long, admirably adapted for the cultivation of the vine, and the 
other productions of the South of Europe ; and do you not think 
it would be highly desirable for the general advancement of the 
Colony, if facilities were held forth by the Government for the 
introduction and settlement of a few hundred families of German 
or Swiss agriculturists accustomed to the cultivation of the vine, 
and such other productions of a climate warmer than that of Bri- 
tain, by granting them a free passage out, or a remission of the 
purchase-money of their land equal to the cost of their passage ? 

There is a great extent of country in this district, particularly 
in the neighbourhood of the Volcanic Hills (and they abound 
throughout the district) peculiarly adapted for the culture of the 
vine, and other productions of the South of Europe, and if the 



can be furnished here at per 100 running feet, £2, 18s. 6d., and 
transverse braces, 7 feet long and 6 inches square at per 100 
running feet, 20s. ; and for laying them in the ground, and level- 
ling them in a proper manner, 20s. per rod, so that for one mile 
the cost will be as under,— 

Longitudinal Sleepers, . . . £211 4 0 
Transverse Braces, every 8 feet, . 44 4 0 
Laying down and levelling, . . 320 0 0 



£575 8 0 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 311 



Government can be induced to send out a few hundred families of 
German or Swiss agriculturists accustomed to these productions, 
it would confer a boon on the Colony lor all time coming. I 
think that a free passage out, or a remission of the purchase- 
money of their land to that extent, would be sufficient inducement, 
and I think this ought to be done for the good of the Colony. 

8. Do you think that if an immigration of this kind were en- 
couraged as proposed, in the first instance to a limited extent, 
many useful immigrants of the same description would not after- 
wards come out at their own expense to participate in the bene- 
fits and advantages of a soil and climate so favourable as those of 
Port Phillip ? 

I do. 

9. Do you think the cultivation of the vine, and of such other 
productions of the South of Europe as are peculiarly adapted to 
the soil and climate, will ever be extensively introduced into this 
camtry in any other way ? 

These productions are peculiarly suited to the soil and climate 
of Port Phillip, and I do not see any other way in which they can 
be introduced. 

10. What is the extent of land held by the Swiss families re- 
spectively in the neighbourhood of Geelong, the tenure on which 
they hold their land, and the progress they have made during the 
last three years in the extent of vineyard, &c» formed, or in the 
amount of produce ? 

About 30 acres each, on a lease of 14 years at 5s. an acre ; dur- 
ing the last three years they have formed about five acres of 
vineyard each respectively ; the produce for this year I will give 
in a future communication \ this being vintage-time, it is not yet 
ascertained.* 



* Dr. Thomson has informed me, in a communication received 
since my return to this country, that the produce of the Swiss 
vineyards at Geelong is one thousand gallons of wine per acre. 
My brother, Mr. Andrew Lang, J.P. of Dunmore, Hunter's 
River, New South Wales, has had 1200 gallons per acre, from 
a vineyard on his property in that locality, under the manage- 
ment of a German vlgneron from the kingdom of V\ T irtemberg. 
In both cases the wine is of a light watery character, like the 
Rhenish and Moselle wines ; and I am strongly of opinion that 
the general use of such a beverage is destined to be far more ser- 
viceable to the cause of temperance and of Scriptural Christian- 
* ity in the Australian Colonies generally, than the modern gospel 
of Teetotalism itself ; especially considering the Romish purposes 
and objects with which the advocacy of that cause is at present 
notoriously and most offensively combined, and the lax morality 
which it tolerates in every other respect, in Australia. A re- 
spectable Protestant from Dublin informed me, that he was fore- 



312 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



1J. Supposing a Company to be formed at home for the pur- 
chase of blocks of land in this district, and particularly to the 
westward, and to form a railway through these blocks for the 
purposes above-mentioned, what is your opinion as to the advan- 
tages it would hold forth to practical farmers purchasing one 
quarter section, or 1 60 acres of land, any where along the line, or 
within three or four miles of it, at 25s. an acre, and receiving a 
free passage for themselves and servants in the Company's 
ships — do you not think that persons of this class would be in in- 
comparably more favourable circumstances at the close of two 
years from the period of their embarkation, than if they had gone 
to any of the British Colonies of North America, and incurred 
precisely the same expenditure in passage-money, the purchase 
of land, and the other expenses of settlement in a new country \ 

I am decidedly of opinion that the purchase or lease, with a 
view to purchase, of 160 acres, or a-quarter section of land, with- 
in five miles of such a railway, and a free passage to themselves 
and servants, under the auspices of the Company, would afford to 
families of this description a comfortable asylum. Nature has 
already done much for their reception, and common prudence and 
industry will sufficiently reward every reasonable expectation. 
The superior advantages over the North American Colonies (see 
No. 1.) will place this class of persons in infinitely better circum- 
stances at the end of two years from their embarkation, than if 
they emigrated to any other Colony yet formed. 

12. Would persons purchasing a homestead of this kind, and 
forming an agricultural settlement upon it, be able to avail them- 
selves of the facilities which this country affords for the rearing 
of sheep and cattle on the waste lands of the Crown, in common 
with the Squatters generally, provided they had the means of 
taking up Squatting Stations also in the interior ? 

I feel confident that thousands of agricultural families with 
small capitals, who may be induced to select this district as the 
field of their industrious efforts, will have no cause to regret their 
doing so, for they will find ample scope for the profitable employ- 
ment of capital, in addition to their farming operations, by em- 
5fi£Tgrm$ nziHia, b toi £ot>(j807q on io wonA X— sJasv 
— — 

man of a jury in Sydney, before which a Romish fellow-country- 
man of his own was tried for stealing a watch from a young wo- 
man, with whom it appeared he had been cohabiting. The case 
was clear against the man, and it was a peculiarly glaring one, 
from the utter heartlessness, as well as the want of moral prin- 
ciple, which it exhibited ; but to the utter astonishment of my 
informant, he found, on entering the jury -room, that certain of the 
jury were for acquitting him, because he was a leading man in the 
St. Patrick's Total Abstinence Society ! The foreman had some 
difficulty in getting over this objection, so as to secure a verdict 
against the criminal. 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 313 



barking in pastoral pursuits in the interior, provided they have 
energy and perseverance adequate to the task. 

1 3. Be so good as state your opinion as to the general salubrity 
of the climate, and its advantages, as compared with that of the 
North American Colonies generally ? 

The equable temperature of Port Phillip renders it most con- 
genial to European constitutions, equal to any other country on 
the face of the globe. The thermometer ranges between 70° to 
80° in Summer, and in Winter from 50° to 60°. The country is 
not liable to any tropical diseases, and it is equally free from 
many of the diseases incident to the cold climates of Britain and 
North America. 

A. Thomson, Chairman of the Committee ap- 
pointed at a Public Meeting held in Gee- 
long on the 31st of March 1846, to collect 
information on the subject of Railways. 

Geelong, April 20, 1846. 

bnfi 9dtt9Dxriq nofiifnoo bdj5 ? 0oitq&'js*z"ic3dt xol ffonm onoh vbssiij? 

Supposing then that any arrangement could be effect- 
ed in this country for securing the progressive con- 
struction of a Tram-road or Wooden Railway from the 
town and harbour of Geelong, across the Western 
Plains of Phillipsland, and that land of the first quality 
for cultivation could be purchased along the line of 
such road or railway, in quantities of 160 acres and 
upwards, at the rate of twenty-five shillings an acre, 
(that is five shillings above the present minimum price 
for such land in any locality, and without the slight- 
est prospect of such advantages, in the Australian Co- 
lonies) — the emigrant being provided moreover with a 
free passage out for himself and family, and farm-ser- 
vants — I know of no prospect for a British emigrant 
of small capital, either in the North American Colo- 
nies, or in the United States of America, half so eli- 
gible, or that would deserve to be compared for one 
moment with the prospect which emigration to Phil- 
lipsland would in such circumstances imply. For my 
own part, after having visited the Cape of Good Hope, 
and the whole of the Australian Colonies, including New 
Zealand, with the single exception of South Australia, 
and after having travelled in not fewer than eleven of 
the United States of America — from Salem in Massa- 



314 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



chusetts to Charleston in South Carolina — I have no 
hesitation in declaring that, if I were myself in the 
condition of a small farmer about to emigrate from the 
mother- country, with a rising family and a capital of 
from £200 to £500 — or if I belonged to the middle and 
non-agricultural classes of society in the United King- 
dom, and were led to emigrate from the difficulty of 
making a suitable provision for my family at home — I 
would incomparably rather purchase a moderate extent 
of land, w r ith a view to settle on the terms I have 
mentioned, in Phillipsland, than emigrate to any of the 
British provinces of North America, to the Cape of 
Good Hope, or the Western States of the Union, even if 
I were to have the same quantity of land given me, in 
any one of these localities, for nothing. 

The mere cheapness of w T aste land in different coun- 
tries beyond seas is but one of the many considerations 
that ought to engage the attention of an intending 
emigrant, possessed of a moderate amount of capital, 
and hesitating as to which of the various fields of emi- 
gration, that are now open to such persons, he ought to 
fix on. Such a person ought, for instance, to consider 
not only how he is to find a market for his surplus 
produce in the land of his future settlement, but (what 
is of far more consequence, but far seldomer thought of) 
how he is to get that produce conveyed to market — 
along corduroy roads, or rather no roads at all, in 
Canada West, or Wisconsin, or along the fever-and- 
ague flats and marshes of Michigan and Illinois. For it 
is a common, but striking, observation of the hyperbole- 
loving Americans, in certain of the Western States of 
the Union, as indicative of the acknowledged and ex- 
treme insalubrity of their climate, that "they have 365 
different diseases — a fresh one for every day in the 
year !" The intending emigrant ought also to consider 
what prospect there is of reproducing in the land of his 
intended adoption so much of the framework of the 
civilization of the mother-country as is suited to the 
altered condition of society in a new country. And I 
have no hesitation in expressing my belief and con vie- 



CAPABILITIES FOK EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 315 



tion that, under such an arrangement as I have men- 
tioned — and the reader will bear in mind that the 
arrangement suggested is in perfect accordance with 
the principles of the existing Act of Parliament for the 
disposal of Waste Land in the Australian Colonies — 
there would be a much better prospect of reproducing 
the framework of British civilization along the Western 
Plains of Phillipsland than in any other emigration-field 
I know of, either in the transmarine possessions of Britain 
or in the United States of America. The purchase of 
200,000 acres of land— in lots of 1 60, 320, 640, 1280, 
and 2560 acres — along the proposed line of tram-road 
or wooden railway, would enable the parties making the 
supposed arrangement with the Government, not only to 
carry out a labouring population, including the usual 
proportion of women and children, of ten thousand 
souls, but also to construct the proposed tram-road or 
wooden railway between the line of agricultural 
settlements on either side; for the principle of the 
Australian Lands' Act is to appropriate one-half of the 
proceeds of the sale of land to the promotion of emigra- 
tion, and to render the other available for such inter- 
nal improvements as will enhance the value of the land 
and ensure its speedy and comfortable settlement. 
Now, the mere introduction of a labouring population 
of ten thousand souls at this moment would at once 
enhance the value of every acre of available land in 
the district at least ten per cent., while the construction 
of a tram-road or wooden railway across the Western 
Plains would immediately double the value of every 
acre of such land within four or five miles of its course. 
Finally, the intending emigrant ought to consider whe- 
ther the land of his intended emigration is such as to 
enable its inhabitants to turn to the best possible ac- 
count the physical energies of man. How stands the 
ease, therefore, in this important respect between Phil- 
lipsland and British America ? Why, in the former, 
the farmer can employ himself in the healthful and 
profitable labours of the field all the year round, so that, 
in the language of Scripture, " his threshing shall 



316 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach 
unto the sowing-time ;" * while in the latter, the land 
is regularly bound up for six or seven months every 
year in hard frost, or enveloped in a thick mantle of 
snow. In the former, the farm-stock are supported on 
the natural pasture all the year round : while in the 
latter, artificial food must be provided for them at great 
trouble and expense for six or seven months every year. 
Again, the Australian farmer requires only light and 
inexpensive clothing all the year round ; but for half 
the year the Canadian of the same class must be wrap- 
ped round with furs or with English broad-cloth, manu- 
factured, perhaps, from Australian wool. In such 
circumstances, it is self-evident that the same degree 
of industry and economy, the same amount of physical 
energy, will be far more serviceable to the individual 
in Phillipsland than in Canada — will in all likelihood 
place him in much better circumstances, and afford 
him a much larger amount of marketable produce to 
exchange for the productions of other lands. This a 
priori conclusion is borne out by the well-ascertained 
fact already referred to, that while the whole amount 
of British produce and manufactures consumed annually 
by every individual of the population in Canada is only 
equal in value to thirty-five shillings, the amount con- 
sumed by every individual in New South Wales and 
Port Phillip is equal in value to £7, 10s. Doubtless 
there is much to be said in favour of the free institu- 
tions of America, as a source of attraction for any man 
possessing the spirit of a freeman, as compared with 
the wretched system of Government that has hitherto 
prevailed in Australia ; but as Earl Grey, the present 
liberal and enlightened Head of the Colonial Depart- 
ment, has announced his intention to introduce a bill 
into Parliament, if possible during the present session, 
for the extension of British Institutions to the Austra- 
lian Colonies, I cannot see that, even in this respect, 
there can possibly be any advantage in future, in the 



* Lev. xxvL 5. 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 317 

estimation of an intelligent emigrant, in favour even of 
" free and enlightened" America. Much as I admire 
the citizens of that great Republic in many respects, 
and strongly as I feel constrained to exclaim, in con- 
trasting their general condition and their high and 
commanding position in the scale of civilization with 
that of the miserable States of the Southern continent 
that owe their origin to Spain and Portugal, " Many 
daughters have done virtuously, but thou hast excelled 
them all," there are certain of their institutions — I mean 
particularly their Domestic Institutions — which, as a Bri- 
ton, I could never endure. I admire the Stars, but I 
abominate the Stripes ! 

It is usually objected, however, to the idea of intro- 
ducing a numerous agricultural population into Phil- 
lipsland, that such a population would not be likely to 
find a suitable market for their produce, that produce 
being supposed to consist exclusively of grain. To this 
objection I would reply, 

First, That there is no other civilized country in which 
there is so large a proportion of the actual population 
employed exclusively in pastoral pursuits, and so small 
a proportion in agriculture, as in Australia. Now, this 
is surely by no means a desirable state of things, or one 
that is likely to prove conducive to the general welfare. 
Of the sixteen millions of whites in the United States 
of America, it is estimated that not fewer than 
14,000,000 are employed in agriculture (which there 
includes grazing, as the sheep and cattle are generally 
fed on artificial pasture), 500,000 in manufactures and 
mechanical arts, and 1,500,000 in commerce and mer- 
cantile pursuits. It is evident, therefore, that a nu- 
merous agricultural population is one of the first requi- 
sites in Phillipsland, to secure the due equilibrium of 
society in that colony, and to afford a market within 
the territory for the consumption of a portion at least 
of the vast quantity of valuable animal food that must 
otherwise go to waste or be destroyed. And if seven- 
eighths of the whole population of the United States 
are employed in agriculture, there must surely be room 



318 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



enough for a large additional agricultural population in 
Phillipsland. Indeed, the cheapness of animal food, as 
well as of working or draught-cattle, which the pre- 
sent state of things in Australia necessarily implies, is 
the very life of agriculture, as distinguished from pas- 
toral pursuits. 

Secondly, It has been ascertained that wheat can be 
grown near Geelong so as to remunerate the grower at 
3s. 6d. a bushel. The price is seldom so low in the 
colony ; but at that price it will easily bear the cost of 
exportation to England, for freight and charges amount 
to not more than from Is. 3d. to Is. 6d. per bushel. 
Now, wheat is very seldom under 40s. per quarter in 
England. 

Thirdly, Grain is not the only article for the produc- 
tion of which the soil and climate of Phillipsland are 
pre-eminently adapted. I have mentioned wine, for 
the production of which the Swiss vignerons at Geelong 
have not only declared the soil and climate admirably 
adapted, but have fully demonstrated the fact by their 
own complete success : I might add all the other pro- 
ductions of the South of Europe. But there is one 
article of produce for which there can be no doubt a priori 
that the soil and climate of Phillipsland are peculiarly 
adapted, I mean the flax of commerce — not the phor- 
mium tenaxof New Zealand, but a much more valuable 
article, the linum usitatissimum, or common flax of 
Europe — -for the flax plant is indigenous in Australia; 
and in the Western Portion of the Western District of 
Phillipsland, towards the Glenelg River, it covers many 
an acre of marshy land every year with its beautiful 
blue flowers. 

"In this hut," observes Sir Thomas Mitchell, speak- 
ing of a native hut on the Lower Darling River, " were 
many small bundles of the wild flax, evidently in a 
state of preparation for making cord or line nets and 
other purposes. Each bundle consisted of a handful 
of stems twisted and doubled once, but the decayed 
state of these showed that the place had been deserted. 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 319 

A great quantity of the flax in that state lay ahout 
the floor and also on the roof of the hut." And again, 
" The natives of the Darling live chiefly on the fish 
of the river, and are expert swimmers and divers. 
They also feed on birds, and especially on ducks, which 
they ensnare with nets, with which a tribe is always 
provided. These nets are very well made, much re- 
sembling our own, and of a similar material, the wild 
flax, which grows near the river in tufts, and thus very 
convenient to pull. These are easily gathered by the 
gins,* who indeed, manage the whole process of net- 
making. They give each tuft (after gathering it) a 
twist, also biting it a little, and in that state their flax 
is laid about on the roofs of their houses until dry. 
Fishing nets are made of various similar materials, 
being often very large, and attached to some I have 
seen half-inch cordage, which might have been mis- 
taken for the production of a rope walk." t 

I have seen the wild flax growing myself on my 
brother s property on the Hunter, in New South Wales. 
Had I not known that it was an indigenous plant, I 
could not have distinguished it from the European 
variety. Nay, tobacco and indigo are both also found 
indigenous on the same river. 

There cannot, therefore, be a doubt that the soil and 
climate of Phillipsland are admirably adapted for the 
cultivation of flax, and I cannot help regarding the 
circumstance as exceedingly important in its probable 
bearings, not only on the future advancement of that 
settlement, but on the Empire generally ; for if a nu- 
merous flax-growing population, emigrating from the 
north of Ireland, should be settled in that province, 
another valuable export for the English market might 
very soon be created in the colony, second only to that 
of wool. Of the profitableness of this branch of culti- 
vation to the farmer, and of the important stimulus it 



* The native women, 
f Three Expeditions into the Interior of Australia, by Sir T. L. 
Mitchell, Surveyor-General of New South Wales. Vol i. 261 
and 302. 



320 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



affords for the manufacturing industry of the mother- 
country, I would beg to offer the following illustra- 
tion, on the authority of Mr. Dickson, the author 
of a recent work on the Cultivation of Flax in Ire- 
land. That gentleman informs us, therefore, that a 
tenant of the Dean of Dromore has grown on three 
statute acres of land 120 stones of flax, which, at 
the moderate price of 15s. per stone, would give a re- 
turn of £90. Under all circumstances, however, Mr. 
Dickson says this farmer " has a certainty of 100 
stones, which will realize him <£75." 

" This flax," he adds, " is now in process of conver- 
sion into cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, is capable of 
being spun to thirty hanks to the pound, and is to be 
spun by hand. Mark, now, the employment this will 
give : — It will give constant employment for twelve 
months to 132 women to spin it; 18 weavers will be 
occupied a like period in weaving it ; and it will em- 
ploy 40 women a-year to hem-stitch (or vein) the 
handkerchiefs ; thus giving constant employment for 
twelve months to 190 persons. 

" It is curious to trace the result of the process which 
this flax is now undergoing : it will produce 210 webs 
of cambric, each w^eb containing five dozen handker- 
chiefs ; each dozen will be worth 40s., and the entire, 
when finished, will be worth <£2100." 

One of the ablest of our colonial literati, Francis 
Campbell, Esq. M.D. of Sydney, has, within the last 
two years, published a pamphlet in the colony, On the 
Culture of Flax, in which he strongly recommends the 
colonists to embark extensively in this branch of cul 
tivation. It is extremely difficult, however, to induce 
an agricultural population in any country to deviate 
from their accustomed course of procedure, or to em- 
bark in any new branch of husbandry, and the likeliest 
mode of accomplishing so important an object would, 
therefore, be the one I have suggested — the introduc- 
tion of a flax-growing population from the North of 
Ireland. 

" Flax," Dr. Campbell informs us, " yields from 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 321 



three to ten cwt. per imperial acre of dried plants, and 
from 420 to 630 lbs. the acre of dressed flax, is con- 
sidered a fair crop. If the quality be fine, it may 
fetch £90 a ton, which requires from four to five acres 
to produce. Thus a return of from £20 to £24 per 
acre, exclusive of the process of dressing, may be ex- 
pected, but including the dressing, from £12 to £17 
per acre, is a fair profit. The price of the seed, which 
averages about ten bushels to the acre, is not taken in- 
to account here." 

" Of flax alone, it is stated on good authority, there is 
imported into the United Kingdom annually to the va- 
lue of £5,000,000 sterling. The quantity of flax im- 
ported into the United Kingdom in 1820 amounted to 
532,382 cwt,; in 1836 to 1,529,116 cwt, showing an 
increase in the space of sixteen years of nearly one mil* 
lioncwts., or 112,000,000 lbs. weight. From 1836 
to 1841, inclusive, the quantity of flax and tow import- 
ed into Great Britain and Ireland averaged from one 
million and a-quarter to one million and a-half cwt. 
annually. The price of dressed flax ranges according 
to its quality from £33 to £150 per ton. Russia sup- 
plies more than two-thirds of the flax imported into 
England; Prussia, Holland, and Belgium supply the 
rest. France sends but a very small quantity." 

" One acre in every 86 of the whole territory of 
Belgium is devoted to the growth of flax. In the dis- 
tricts of Courtrai and St. Nicolas, as much as 1 in 20, 
and in the Pays de Waes, 1 in 10." 

" Five million kilogrammes of dressed flax were ex- 
ported annually from Belgium to England and else- 
where, on an average of eight years, from 1830 to 
1839." 

"The remainder," says Tennent, in his work on 
Belgium, quoted by Dr. Campbell, "is reserved for 
home-manufacture into thread and cloth, and it is esti- 
mated, by M. Briavionne, that the cultivation of this 1 
1 one article alone, combining the value of the raw ma- 
terial with the value given to it by preparations in its 
various stages from flax to linen cloth, produces annu- 

x 



322 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



ally to Belgium an income of 63,615,000 francs, or 
nearly £3,000,000 sterling." 

"Such," says Tennent, "is the superiority of Bel- 
gian flax, that whilst in some instances it has brought 
so high a price as £220 per ton, and generally ranges 
from £80 to £90, not more than £90 has in any in- 
stance that I ever heard of been obtained for British, 
and its ordinary average does not exceed £50." 

" Columella says, 6 Flax ought not to be cultivated 
unless it will yield great increase in the region where 
you grow it, and the price it brings encourage you ; for 
it is in a particular manner injurious to the land. It 
requires to be sown on a very rich and moderately humid 
soil, and is to be committed to the earth from the be- 
ginning of October till the beginning of December — a 
kalendis Octobris in ortum aquilae. A jugerum of land, 
which is two-thirds of an English acre, or 27,850 feet, 
is sown with eight modii of seed, that is about eight 
pecks Winchester measure/ " 

" It may be laid doAvn as a general rule, that flax is 
fully ripe in three months from the time of sowing. 
The usual seed-time in the warmer latitudes of Europe, 
&c, is before winter, in order to avoid the immoderate 
heats of the summer and autumn months, which would 
inevitably injure this crop. I am convinced the same 
practice ought to be punctually followed in this coun- 
try [New South Wales.] The winter with us is doubt- 
less the most genial season of the whole year ; whereas 
the heats of summer are so intense as to be utterly de- 
structive of this valuable crop, which I fear would 
shrink into nothing under the first afflatus of a hot 
wind. Sown, therefore, about the end of April, the 
crop would be in full flower and ready to harvest be- 
fore it could be affected by any particularly unfavour- 
able weather. After winter, perhaps, the next best 
months for sowing this crop, in our division of the con- 
tinent, would be September and October." 

" Lord Kaimes observes, that 6 flax is a thirsty plant.' 
If the subsoil, therefore, is moist, or capable of retain- 
ing moisture, it is an advantage of the first importance. 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 323 



In fact, a moist subsoil would appear indispensable to the 
successful cultivation of flax!' 

Now, this is exactly the character of the soil, over a 
large extent of country in the South-western portion 
of Phillipslancl, particularly in the Port Fairy District 
and towards the Glenelg Eiver, as well as along the 
lakes and rivers of Gippsland — exceedingly rich and 
rather moist. In short, these tracts of country are 
admirably adapted for the cultivation of flax, for it will 
surely be admitted that the native country of any plant 
must always be the best adapted for its artificial culti- 
vation. In regard to the proper period for sowing, I 
quite agree with Dr. Campbell in thinking that it 
ought to be before and not after winter. In Phillipsland 
the proper season would be somewhat later than in 
New South Wales, but the flax would require — there 
also, as well as in the more northerly and warmer pro- 
vince — to have attained its maturity before the com- 
mencement of summer. It is evident, at all events, 
that in the ancient land of Egypt the seed-time for this 
plant was before winter, so as to have it ready for 
harvesting early in spring ; for in the narrative of 
" the plague of hail/' we are told by the sacred writer 
that <; the flax and the barley were smitten ; for the barley 
was in the ear, and the flax was boiled. But the wheat 
and the rye were not smitten ; for they were not grown 
vp" * The plague of hail must therefore have fallen 
upon the land of Egypt early in March ; for barley and 
flax, being both hardy plants, w r ould have sufficient 
heat during the mild winter-nionths of an Egyptian 
climate to bring them to maturity by that season ; 
whereas wheat and rye, being sown later, and requir- 
ing a greater degree of heat to bring them to maturity, 
would not be sufficiently forward to be hurt by the 
hail. This occurrence of the harvest before and not 
after the summer, in the warmer regions of both hemis- 
pheres, explains the apparently strange collocation of 



* Exodus ix. 31, 32. 



324 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



ideas in the singularly beautiful and affecting Scriptural 
expostulation, The harvest is past, and the summer is 
ended; but ye are not saved, 

I may be permitted to add, in further reference to 
" the plague of hail" in ancient Egypt, that, like the 
present visitation of the Almighty in our own country, 
it must have fallen principally upon the humbler classes. 
Barley, as a coarser and cheaper grain, would doubt- 
less be the food of the labouring classes and the poor 
of that country : the middle and wealthier classes would 
live chiefly on wheat and rye. The destruction of the 
whole crop of barley would therefore be somewhat 
similar in its effects to that of the potato-crop. Again, 
as flax was the grand staple of the manufactures of 
ancient Egypt, the destruction of the entire crop of 
that important article of agricultural produce must 
have paralyzed the national industry to an incredible 
degree. It must have stopped every loom and closed 
every factory for a season ; realizing the very state of 
things experienced so extensively at the present moment 
in our own country — no employment for myriads of 
the labouring classes, and gaunt Famine stalking over 
the land ! 

To return to Dr. Campbell and the cultivation of flax 
in Australia — " There are three sorts of seed in use," 
he tells us, " the Dutch, the Riga, and the American. 
The universal voice is in favour of the Dutch, because 
it ripens sooner, and produces both greater crops and 
a superior quality of flax." 

In addition, however, to the flax of commerce, oil- 
cake, for feeding and fattening cattle, is another valu- 
able and important product of the flax plant ; and as a 
further reason why this branch of cultivation should be 
taken up and prosecuted with the requisite vigour, in a 
country so peculiarly adapted for it as Phillipsland, the 
quantity of this product annually consumed in England 
amounts in value, according to Dr. Campbell, to from 
£2,000,000 to £3,000,000 sterling,* and is exclusively 

* It is evident from a subsequent Return that the value of the 
flax-seed imported into England is included in this amount 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 325 



supplied at present by foreigners who. it would appear, 
receive little or no British produce or manufactures in 
return. " At the Arundel Agricultural Meeting," Dr. 
Campbell observes, u a gentleman stated that five or 
six (foreign) ships, loaded with linseed cake, left their 
cargoes at Hull, without laying out a shilling in goods, 
or even drinking: a pint of beer, carrving off pure 
bullion." 

It appears, from the same authority, that " the esti- 
mated breadth of land sown on the average in Ireland 
for ten years was 87.106 acres/' 

I had just finished the transcription of these memo- 
randa — which I had extracted from Dr. Campbell's 
pamphlet, on board the Shamrock steamboat, on her 
voyage from Melbourne to Sydney in the month of 
February 1846, with a view to their insertion in this 
work — when I happened to meet with a letter on the 
Cultivation of Flax in Ireland, in the Daily News of the 
25th March 1847, signed Lrnum. and dated Belfast. 
From that letter, which mentions the peculiarly inter- 
esting fact that the linen-manufacture of the north of 
Ireland owes its origin to the French Huguenots, I 
make the following extracts, which will serve as a con- 
tinuation of those from Dr. Campbell, bringing down 
the history of flax-cultivation and importation in the 
United Kingdom to a comparatively recent period. 

" The manufactures of the United Kingdom consume 
from 90,000 to 110,000 tons of flax per annum. Of 
this quantity Russia supplies between four and five- 
eighths ; Prussia an eighth ; Holland, Belgium, and 
France, a sixteenth ; Egypt, Sicily, Germany, and 
Denmark, a fractional part ; and Ireland about two- 
eighths, or rather more. This is a proximate cal- 
culation, the proportions frequently varving consider- 
ably." 

" From Returns made by the Board of Trade to the 
Royal Society for the Promotion and Improvement of 
the Growth of Flax in Ireland, it appears that we im- 
ported in 1844 — 



326 



PHILLIP SLAND. 



79,424 tons of flax at £50, value £3,971,200 

616,947 quarters flax-seed at £2, 5s., — 1,388,131 
85,820 tons of oil-cake at £7, 10s., — 644,1 75 



£6,003,506" 

There is evidently, therefore, a boundless field for 
agricultural industry in this particular department in 
the province of Phillipsland, and the fairest prospect 
of an adequate return for those agriculturists who 
shall embark in it with the requisite vigour and perse- 
verance. 

Another branch of cultivation whicli Dr. Campbell 
strongly recommends to the colonists of New South 
Wales, and for which the soil and climate of Phillips- 
land are admirably adapted, is that of hemp. The 
following are extracts from his pamphlet, which I insert 
with a view to direct the attention of the intending 
emigrant to a source of remuneration for his future 
labour in the land of his adoption which he might 
otherwise not think of. 

" Cannabis sativa, or common hemp, is supposed to 
be a native of Persia, is found growing wild among the 
hills and mountains in the North of India, and in 
various parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe. It is culti- 
vated all over the globe, and thrives equally in all 
climates ; for while it defies the utmost rigours of Sibe- 
rian frosts, it supports without injury the fiercest ardour 
of the solar heats of India. But it rises to a much 
greater height in the warm than in the cold latitudes. 
In Russia, and other parts of the North of Europe and 
of America, it seldom exceeds six or seven feet, whereas 
in some parts of the South of Europe, as in the Bo- 
lognese territory and the Terra di Lavora in Italy, 
where it is cultivated extensively, its height frequently 
exceeds 18 feet, and yields an extremely fine and 
beautiful fibre." 

" It requires the same climate and soil as flax, but it 
is not necessary to plough the ground so often. Yet 
those who cultivate hemp for cordage ought to sow it 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 327 



in the richest soil, where it will grow very tall and 
thick, yielding a great proportion of tow from the thick- 
ness of its bark. It is pulled when the seed is ripe, but 
the male is gathered when it turns w 7 hite, about ten 
days before the female. The whole are then macerated 
together in water until the fibre separates easily from 
the stalk." 

" The cultivation of hemp is exceedingly simple and 
requires little, if any attention from the time the seed 
is put in the ground until the plant is ready for pulling, 
which generally happens in ten or twelve weeks ; and 
if there be flax and hemp-dressing machines available, 
the after-processes are easy and uncomplicated, but 
nice. But the most delicate and essential part is the 
judicious and accurate selection and classification of the 
different qualities and sizes, and keeping each assorted 
by itself through ail the operations. " 

"About six cvvt. of prepared hemp, and 12 to 30 
bushels of seed are the usual produce of an imperial 
acre, and the profits, including seed and oil, may be 
estimated at £8 to <£10 sterling." 

? Hemp-seed yields an excellent oil for burning and 
many other domestic purposes." 

" The average price of hemp in the English market, 
for a number of years past, may be safely taken at £27 
per ton of 2240 lbs." 

" 180,000 lbs. of hemp are required to rig completely 
a first-rate ship of war, and if four acres produce on 
an average one ton of hemp, a single first-rate man-of- 
war will require the produce of 320 acres to furnish 
her with a complete outfit." 

Great Britain , , 

In imported from requiring for and costing 

Russia its growth respectively 

1 838 36,473 tons of hemp, 1 4 5,892 acres of Land,- £9 1 1 ,825 

1839 49,778 do. 199,112 do. 1,284,450 

1840 34,218 do. }3<J,872 do. 855,450* 

In short., so far from being " the poorest of countries 
for colonization, and the most destitute of available 

* A Treatise on the Culture of Fiax and Hemp, by Francis 
Campbell, M.D. Sydney, 1845. Passim. 



328 



PHILL1PSL AND . 



productions," it is a remarkable fact, that Australia is 
the only country that I have ever heard of on the face 
of the globe, which, enjoying at the same time a cli- 
mate of unsurpassed salubrity, could, with European 
industry and a sufficient amount of capital to set it in 
motion— without the assistance of slaves, or even of 
black men of any race — supply from her own soil and 
climates the whole amount of the raw material now 
annually imported by Great Britain for the whole of 
her textile manufactures, independently of any con- 
ceivable quantity of sugar and coffee, tobacco and wine. 
The raw materials I allude to are, 

1. Wool, of which New South Wales and Port 
Phillip exported during the year 1845, not less than 
17,364,734 lbs. of the estimated value of £1,009,242. 

2. Flax and Hemp, the former of which I have 
shown to be indigenous, and therefore unquestionably 
suited to the soil and climate, from the Great Southern 
Ocean to at least the 32d degree of South latitude. 
The raw material for all the linen, cambric, lace, can- 
vas and cordage of Great Britain could be supplied, 
within a comparatively short period, and with perfect 
facility, from Australia exclusively. 

3. Silk. This commodity has been produced of 
good quality, and with great facility, although merely 
as a matter of curiosity, in and near Sydney. The 
mulberry tree thrives uncommonly well, and the cli- 
mate is perfectly adapted to the constitution of the 
worm. It could be raised in Phillipsland also to any 
conceivable extent, 

4. Cotton. I have ascertained within the last fort- 
night, that this important production is also indigenous, 
if not on the mainland of Australia, at least on some 
of the islands close in-shore, at the north-eastern ex- 
tremity of the land. A specimen of the native cot- 
ton from this locality has been brought home and ex- 
hibited in Glasgow by my esteemed friend and relative, 
Dr. Muirhead, E.N. Surgeon of H. M. Surveying Ship, 
Fly, Captain Blackwood, recently engaged in a survey 
of the reefs off that coast. I have no doubt, however, 
that it will be found also on the adjoining mainland. 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 329 



Dr. M. brought home, at the same time, a specimen of 
the cultivated cotton (from American seed) from the 
settlement of Port Essington, on the North Coast of 
Australia, which has been pronounced by gentlemen 
well acquainted with the qualities of the article, equal 
to that of Pernambuco in the Brazils ; and I saw the 
plant growing myself (as a mere article of curiosity, 
however) in a garden in Brisbane Town, Moreton Bay, 
lat. 27i° S.* as vigorously as I had seen it many years 
before on one of the islands in the harbour of Eio Ja- 
neiro, in the Brazils. And the consideration of trans- 
cendant importance — not only to Great Britain and her 
Australian Colonies, but to the interests of humanity — 
which the circumstance suggested at the moment to 
my own mind was, that the article could be cultivated 
in that locality to any conceivable amount by means of 
European labour. For I found members of my own 
congregation, who had recently settled in the neigh- 
bourhood, working in the open air in the ordinary la- 
bours of the field, and w T ith perfect impunity, under a 
vertical sun at midsummer, or in the middle of "De- 
cember 1845. 

Such, therefore, are the prospects for the agricultu- 
rist in Phillipsland. They are in the highest degree 
favourable, and I have no hesitation in adding that, 
even under the present minimum-price-system of one 
pound an acre for land of the first quality for cultiva- 
tion, they are not surpassed by those of any other trans- 
marine settlement, whether British or American, on 
the face of the globe. But there is a strong party in 
the Colony — and I am sorry to add, they have many 
influential people to aid and abet them in this country, 
in utter ignorance of the real circumstances of the case 
— who obstinately shut their eyes to all these consider- 
ations, and indirectly oppose every obstacle to the in- 
troduction of an agricultural population, to develop 
the vast resources of the country, and to make it the 

* A specimen of cotton from this locality has just been pro- 
nounced by an eminent London cotton-broker, " of superior qua- 
lity, and worth at present 6id. per lb. in the London market." 



330 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



happy abode of a numerous, industrious, and virtuous 
community, deriving their subsistence exclusively from 
the produce of the soil. These gentlemen make a pro- 
digious outcry, it is true, about the want of labour, but 
then it is only for labour to tend their own flocks and 
herds ; for when any attempt is made, even in imagi- 
nation, to abridge their extensive runs, and to reclaim 
for the uses of man what they would appropriate ex- 
clusively for those of beasts, they will prove to us either 
that the soil and climate are not suited for agriculture, 
or that land of the first quality for cultivation, however 
well situated for a port or market, can never be worth 
a pound an acre.* Well therefore may Dr. Campbell 



* The following; is the result of a Government Sale of Town 
Allotments and Suburban Lots of Land, which took place at Mel- 
bourne on the 12th August 1846. The Suburban Lots are all 
within a few miles either of Melbourne or of Geelong — and the 
principal Purchasers, too, are Squatters themselves! Surely they 
must know what the land is either now, or will soon be, worth. 

SALE OF CROWN LANDS. 
On Wednesday last, 12th August. Mr. G. S. Brodie, the Go- 
vernment Auctioneer, brought to the hammer the Crown Lands 
which have for some time back been advertised in our columns. 
The following was the result : — 

1. Town Allotments. 
North Geelong. 
Two roods — Upset price £300 per acre, 
£ s. d. 

No. 1—210 0 0 Alex. M'Gillivray. 

5J 2—210 0 0 Robert Langlands. 

n 3—215 0 0 Robert Sutherland. 

Violet Creek. 
Two roods — Upset price £8 per acre. 



No. 4— 


4 


0 


0 


w «. Thomas Clarke. 


» &- 


5 


0 


0 


™ Ditto 




4 


0 




Z Ditto 


» 6 T 

99 7- 


4 


0 


0 


™ Ditto 




4 


0 


0 


Ditto 


„ 9- 
„ 10- 


4 
5 


0 
15 


0 

0 


Ditto 

, Ditto 


,9 11- 


5 


10 


0 


Ditto 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 331 



exclaim, when contrasting the vast capabilities of the 
country with the monstrous selfishness of these narrow- 



£ s. d. 

No. 12— 8 0 0 Thomas Clarke. 

„ 13— 7 4 0 Ditto 

ALBERTON — GlPPSLAND. 



Two roods — Upset price £12 per acre. 



No. 14_ 28 


0 


0 ... 


Daniel Law. 


„ 15— 22 


0 


0 _ 


Ditto 


„ 3 6— 10 


0 


0 — 


* Thomas Wills. 


p 17- 11 


0 


0 


........ Ditto 


„ 18— 12 


0 


0 _ 


^ Daniel Law. 


„ 19— 13 


0 


0 ~~ 


Ditto 


„ 20— 14 


0 


0 — 


* ~~~~~ Harris & Marks. 


„ 21- 14 


0 


0 _ 


____ Ditto 


„ 22— 20 


0 


0 _ 


. , John Bullen. 


„ 23— 13 


0 


0 ~~ 


Matthew Cantlon. 


„ 24— 10 


0 


0 _ 


Bells & Buchanan. 


„ 25_ 14 


0 


0 _ 


MMM .... Ditto 


„ ZD— I 0 


I K 
10 


0 _ 


James Dobson, junr. 


„ 27— 13 


0 


0 _ 


................ Bells & Buchanan. 


„ 28— 20 


0 


0 _ 


Ditto 


„ 29— 10 


0 


0 ~~ 


. DittO 


„ 30— 14 


0 


0 


Ditto 


„ 31— 21 


0 


0 _ 


„„„ John Porter. 


„ 32- 10 


10 


0 _ 


Michael Davis. 


„ 33— 9 


0 


0 


, Thomas Wills. 


„ 34— 10 


0 


0 


vrs- m Ditto 


„ 35_ 9 


0 


0 — 


„ r Ditto 


„ 36_ 9 


0 


0 .... 


... Ditto 


„ 37- 14 


0 


0 . . 


; .. Harris & Marks. 


„ 38— 36 


0 


0 ~„ 


. J. F. Strachan. 


„ 39— 29 


0 


3 jjL 


John Porter. 






North Melbourne. 


1 Rood, 36 Perches- 


— Upset price £300 per acre. 


No. 40—270 


0 


0 _ 


Edmund Westby. 


f9 41—375 


0 


0 


..... Hugh Glass. 


„ 42—305 


0 


0 


George S. Brodie. 






North Geelong. 


No. 43—220 


0 


0 _ 


Edward Willis. 


n 44—170 


0 


0 


William Gray. 


„ 45—420 


0 


0 _ 


^^.^^ William Lewis. 


„ 46—305 


0 


0 


m .. «... William Timms. 


„ 47—225 


0 


0 _ 


... ...... Duncan Hoyle. 


„ 48—300 


0 


0 ™ 


Ditto. 



332 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



minded individuals, " It must be the most sordid of all 
human passions which leads the Squatter to grasp at the 
whole country, to secure his power of covering it with 
inferior animals P This, as I have shown already, is 
certainly by no means the case with the whole of the 
Squatters ; but it is so unquestionably with not a few of 
them, and these perhaps the most influential of the 
body — the men, for example, who take the lead in get- 



2. Suburban Lots. 

1. Bourke, 35a. 2r. 16p., Thirty-five acres, two roods, and six- 
teen perches, parish of Boroondara, portion No. 3. Upset price 
£1, 10s. per acre, to John Wedge Howey, £2, 6s. per acre. 

2. Bourke, 39a. 2r, Thirty-nine acres two roods, parish of Bo- 
roondara, portion No. 5. Upset price £], 10s. per acre, to Ed- 
mund Charles Hobson, £2, 6s. per acre. 

3. Bourke, J 9a. ]r. Nineteen acres and one rood, parish of Bo- 
roondara, portion No. 48 of section No. 6. Upset price £1, 10s. 
per acre, Thomas Budds Payne, £2, 1 5s. per acre. 

4. Bourke, 67a. Sixty-seven acres, parish of Doutta Galla, al- 
lotment No. 29. Upset price £2 per acre, to Andrew Russell, 
£3, lis. per acre. 

5. Bourke, 54a. Fifty-four acres, parish of Doutta Galla, allot- 
ment No. 30. Upset price £2 per acre, to James Malcolm, £4, 
4s. per acre. 

6. Bourke, 343a. Three hundred and forty-three acres, parish 
of Doutta Galla, portion No. 8. Upset price £1, 5s. per acre, 
John Aitken £1, 9s. per acre. 

7. Bourke, 640a. Six hundred and forty acres, parish of Doutta 
Galla, portion No. 12. Upset price £1 per acre, James Patrick 
Main, £1, 6s. per acre. 

8. Bourke, 255a. Two hundred and fifty-five acres, parish of 
Bulleen, portion No. 19. Upset price £1 per acre, James Sin- 
clair Brodie, £1, 12s. per acre. 

9. Grant, 23a. lr. 9p. Twenty-three acres, one rood, and nine 
perches, parish of Barrabool near Geelong, allotment No. 1. of 
portion No. 25. Upset price £5 per acre, no offer. 

10. Grant, 27a. li\ 4p. Twenty-seven acres, one rood, four 
perches, parish of Barrabool near Geelong, allotment No. 2. of 
portion No. 25. Upset price £5 per acre, Alexander Thomson, 
£7 per acre. 

11. Grant, 27a. 3r. 33p. Twenty-seven acres, three roods, and 
thirty-three perches, parish of Barrabool near Geelong, allotment 
No. 3. of portion No. 25, Upset price £5 per acre, Alexander 
Thomson, £7 per acre. 

Melbourne Argus. 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 333 

ting up Associations for the importation of two or three 
hundred Expiree-convicts from Van Dieman's Land 
every month, and whose only object in thus compro- 
mising and sacrificing the moral welfare of the country, 
is to get shepherds and stockmen for their sheep and 
cattle at the cheapest possible rate, that they may ac- 
cumulate fortunes from the fat pastures of the Colony 
in the shortest possible time, and leave the country " to 
go to the dogs" thereafter, while they return to England 
with the accumulated spoil. 

I repeat it — the prospect for persons of moderate 
capital, of the middle walks of life, who would emigrate 
to Phillipsland, with the view of deriving their future 
subsistence chiefly from the cultivation of the soil, is 
at this moment in the highest degree favourable. Sup- 
posing, for example, that the proposed Tram-road or 
Wooden Railway were to be carried along the Western 
Plains, so as to open up for the settlement of an agri- 
cultural population the splendid tract of country con- 
taining upwards of three millions of acres in that direc- 
tion, a respectable family of this class, purchasing a 
square mile, or 640 acres of land, any where within a 
few miles of the line of route, and within a hundred miles 
of Geelong, even at twenty-five shillings an acre, would 
be able, with a comparatively small additional amount 
of capital, to form a most valuable property, and to esta- 
blish themselves in comfort and independence. All the 
farm-labourers, and other servants and artizans they 
would require, either temporarily or permanently, could 
be hired in this country, at the usual rate of wages in the 
Colony, and would be carried out free of cost. A gar- 
dener, for example, to form a garden and orchard on 
the estate, and to cultivate, along with all the horticul- 
tural productions of the mother-country, the vine and 
the olive, &c. ; and a carpenter, under an engagement 
for one or two years, to erect a rough log-cabin in the 
first instance, and afterwards a suitable house, could be 
carried out in this way, with their wives and families, 
free of cost ; their passage out being paid for from the 
purchase-money of the land. In such cases it would 



334 



PHILLIP SL AND, 



be well for the employer, and far better for the Colony 

and the individuals themselves, that hired-servants, or 
other working-people of this kind should be married, 
as the wife and children would be found very useful 
in the Colony, and as the principal articles of subsis- 
tence for a family of this class, viz. bread and beef, su- 
gar and tea, are all remarkably cheap, as compared 
with the usual prices at home. Dairy and draught-cat- 
tle, either to stock a property of this description, or for 
the cultivation of the land, are also much cheaper than 
in the mother-country, as the subjoined Price Current, 
extracted from the ^Melbourne Argus of the 10th of 
August last, will sufficiently prove. I have taken the 
liberty very recently to recommend to the Right Hon. 
Earl Grey, Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State 
for the Colonies, in accordance with a previous recom- 
mendation of the Legislative Council of New South 
TVales, that emigrants of the class I refer to, purchas- 
ing a square mile, or 640 acres of land, should receive 
a remission of £160, or one-fourth of the minimum 
price of the land, to assist in defraying the cost of a 
cabin-passage out, and that the purchasers of one-half, 
or of one-fourth of that extent should receive a remis- 
sion in the same proportion respectively. But even 
although this boon should not be accorded, I cannot 
see why the expenditure of capital and labour in the 
cultivation of land, in such a situation and in such 
circumstances as I have described, should not be a pro- 
fitable undertaking. The capital invested in the abso- 
lute purchase of the land would probably be not greater 
than half-a-year's rent of the same extent of land of 
the same quality in England. Then it is to be remem- 
bered, that there are no taxes, no tithes, no poor's- 
rates. Labour, indeed, is higher priced, but the diffe- 
rence in the cost of that commodity is surely not suffi- 
cient to counterbalance these many advantages. Why 
then should agriculture be an unprofitable speculation 
in Phillipsland ? The cost of freight to England may 
doubtless be supposed an insurmountable difficulty; but 
if that cost does not prevent Australian wool from 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 335 

affording a handsome remuneration to the Colonial 
Squatter, although it has to come into competition at 
home with the wool of Spain and Germany, where la- 
bour is also so much cheaper than in Australia, why 
should the flax and the hemp of Australia — not to 
speak of either wine or grain — be unable to compete 
with the flax of Belgium and the hemp of Russia ? 

But many respectable families in the middle walks of 
life, who might not be able to purchase a whole section 
or square-mile of land, might nevertheless be able to 
purchase half a-mile, or 320 acres. This extent of 
land, if well-selected and turned to proper account, 
would form a most desirable property for a respectable 
family. It would afford a sufficient surface for a small 
dairy, as well as for cultivation, and the purchase 
would secure to the proprietor a free passage out for 
all the farm-servants or artizans he could employ. 

It is probable, however, that the greater number of 
the emigrants above the class of mere labourers or 
farm-servants, and possessed of moderate capital, would 
not be able to purchase and occupy a larger extent of 
land than a-quarter section or 160 acres. This, as the 
reader will doubtless recollect, is the extent of the 
farms into which men of great experience in the West- 
ern District have recommended that the land should 
be portioned out for practical farmers settling in that 
part of the territory. Farms of this size, according to 
Mr. Story, would afford a sufficient extent of land for 
cultivation, and leave pasture enough besides for the 
draught-cattle. 

If any arrangement could be made to enable practi- 
cal farmers to commence upon farms of this extent on 
paying one-half of the purchase-money, the rest to 
remain at Colonial interest on the security of the land, 
it would be very desirable for a numerous class of 
persons in the mother-country who would prove 
most valuable colonists, as well as for the colony 
itself; for it is not expedient even for an expe- 
rienced practical farmer to commence upon a farm 
on his own account, without being possessed of a 



336 



PiULLIPSLAXD. 



sufficient amount of capital, in addition to the mere 
ownership of the waste land, to set him fairly a-going. 
But I am sorry it is not in my power to hold out a 
prospect of any such arrangement for the present. 
At all events, it would be greatly preferable for persons 
of the class of which I have been speaking, to hire 
themselves for a time as farm-servants or overseers, than 
to be hampered at the outset by sitting down upon land 
without having the means to bring it into cultivation. 
Valuable experience would thus be acquired at the ex- 
pense of others, and such an acquaintance with the 
capabilities of the soil and climate attained as, with 
exceedingly limited means, would insure success there- 
after. 

The climate of Phillipsland is somewhat of an in- 
termediate character between those of New South 
Wales and Van Dieman's Land — not so hot as the for- 
mer in summer, nor so cold as the latter in winter. 
There is frost sufficient to freeze the surface of ponds 
for two or three days perhaps every season ; and snow 
falls occasionally, but more rarely. There is a good 
deal of wet and cold weather during the three or four 
winter months, and in summer, again, the heat is tem- 
pered by cool breezes ; the nights being always cool, 
excepting during the prevalence of hot winds. Fires 
are agreeable morning and evening, for eight or nine 
months in the year. Changes of temperature are oc- 
casionally very rapid, but as these occur only on the 
breaking up of a hot wind by a cool refreshing breeze 
from the South, they are rather agreeable than other- 
wise, and in no degree prejudicial to health. The dry- 
ness of the climate, and the absence of deciduous vege- 
tation are both highly favourable in this respect. The 
leaves of the indigenous trees and shrubs generally 
contain a large proportion of empyreumatic or aromatic 
vegetable oil, which is gradually extracted from the 
leaf by the solar heat, leaving the fibrous portions to 
crumble into dust before it falls to the ground. This 
doubtless is a condition of things much less favourable 
for the accumulation of alluvial soil, than that which 



CAPABILITIES FOH EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 337 



we find generally prevalent in countries within the 
corresponding parallels of latitude in the Northern 
Hemisphere, in which the deciduous vegetation forms 
masses of putrefying matter that generate malaria, and 
give rise to a whole catalogue of fevers and agues, with 
not a few of the many other " ills that flesh is heir to ;" 
but it produces, in conjunction with the other causes to 
which I have alluded, a general salubrity of climate 
in the highest degree conducive to the physical com- 
fort and happiness of man. 

" By comparing," observes Count Strzelecki, " the thermome- 
trical condition of the above seven stations, (viz. Port Macquarie, 
Port Stephen, and Port Jackson, in New South Wales; Port 
Phillip ; and Woolnorth, Circular Head and Port Arthur, in Van 
Dieman's Land,) with that of various localities in the Northern 
Hemisphere, we shall see that the temperature of the former is 
more admirably adjusted than any icith which they may be put hi 
juxtaposition; the fluctuations, for instance, of St. Petersburgh 
are 57°; of Warsaw, 43° 2'; of Vienna, 43°; of Buda, 44°; Milan, 
38° 4'; Zurich, 38° 9'; Copenhagen, 38° 9'; Philadelphia, 43° 3'; 
New York, 55°; Quebec, 59° 6'; whereas the highest annual 
mean of such fluctuations at Port Phillip amount only to 37° 3V'f 
" The Australian winds and currents," observes the same ac- 
complished traveller, " considered in relation to the main effects 
they produce on pressure, moisture and temperature, have been 
shown to possess a striking analogy to the winds and atmospheric 
currents of Europe and other parts of the world ; which conse- 
quently renders the conclusion plausible, that their constitution 
and agencies possess nothing peculiar or exceptional, by which 
these winds could be viewed as characteristic of the zone to 
which they belong. The hot wind, even, was found to resemble 
similar winds in Asia, (Jakoutsk,) Africa, North America (Lower 
California,) South America (Acatama,) and the Indian Archipel- 
ago, with this remarkable difference, that its short duration, not 
exceeding ten hours, and its rare occurrence, which takes place 
but twice or thrice per annum, prevents in a great measure 
the extent of mischief and injury to which the above named 
parts of the globe are exposed. Thus, while in Asia and Africa 
the hot wind forms a concomitant of the climate, in New South 
Wales and Van Dieman's Land, it must only be classed among 
the extraneous agents which casually disturb a well ordered cli- 
matic economy, as do those winds in the South of Europe, known 
i under the names of Sirocco, Mistral, &c." 



* Physical Description of New South Wales, and Van Dieman's 
Land, &c, p. '232. 

Y 



338 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



"As regards rain, it was proved to be more plentiful in New 
South Wales than in Van Dieman's Land — a startling fact, to 
those acquainted with the localities, but which, based on numer- 
ous elements, furnished by six different stations, is undoubtedly 
correct. Both the colonies, as compared to England, have been 
shown to receive a larger amount of rain, than does Brussels, 
Berlin, Geneva, York, and lastly London, so celebrated for its 
humidity." 

" As to the Colonial temperature, which comprehends so many 
difTerent climatic effects and agencies, the reader cannot but be 
struck with the range and favourable thermometrical condition 
in which every locality iilustrious under the head of temperature 
is found to be placed, when compared to other localities on the 
globe." 

" Port Macquarie, (lat. 31° 25' S.) in that comparison is seen 
to possess the summer of Florence, Barcelona, Rome, or Naples, the 
winter of Funchal or Benares, and a thermometrical fluctuation 
similar to that of Dublin ; by its annual mean it may be classed 
with the climate of Tunis." 

" Port Jackson, again, is by a similar comparison found to have 
the summer of Avignon, (France,) Constantinople, Baltimore, 
(U. S.) or Philadelphia, and a winter very nearly similar to that 
of Cairo, (Egypt,) or of the Cape of Good Hope. Its fluctuations 
correspond with those of Paris, and its annual mean temperature 
with Messina, (Sicily,) and the Cape of Good Hope." 

" Port Phillip resembles, in its summer season, Baden, Mar- 
seilles and Bourdeaux ; in its winter, Palermo or Buenos-Ayres; 
the fluctuations of its temperature are those of Montpellier, and 
its annual mean is that of Naples." 

" Ac3ording then to the above, the thermometrical fluctuations 
assimilate New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land to a tro- 
pical region ; the summer season of the two colonies resembles 
the summer of that part of Western Europe which lies between 
latitude 41° 53', and 55° 57' N., and the winter that part of the JMe- 
diterranean which is enclosed between the coasts of Spain, Italy, 
France, and Algiers, extending to Tunis and Cairo ; and thus is 
concentrated within the space of 11° of latitude, the elements of 
seasons most requisite and essential for exalting all the energies 
of animal and vegetable life." 

" Independently, however, of comparison and analogy, the cli- 
matic condition of New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land is 
represented in the most favourable light by its rich flora, and by 
the healthy condition of its aboriginal and indigenous animals. 
Looking indeed at the singular and distinctive features by which 
its organic life is characterized, making this continent as it were 
a world apart, we cannot but wonder that the same climate 
under which that life appears should be likewise so well adapted 
to the maintenance of the vegetation and the animals of other 
hemispheres. The effect produced by the appearance of the 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 339 



plantain growing in company with the vine, apple, peach, and the 
English oak, and these again flourishing in the close vicinity of 
the Eucalyptae and Mimosae, is indeed surprising ; nor is it less 
surprising to behold the kangaroo, sheep, emu, and the horned 
cattle roaming together in the same forest, and seeking susten- 
ance from the same herbage." 

" But what mainly illustrates the fertility and salubrity of both 
these countries, is the healthiness of the English settlers who 
have taken root in the soil. No endemic disease, and seldom anv 
epidemic of grave character prevails ; and if individual indisposi- 
tion, or even partial deterioration of the progeny is sometimes 
seen, it is to be traced to the pertinacity with which the English 
race cling to their original modes of living wherever they settle, 
and however different their adopted may be to their native cli- 
mate ; it is to the abuse of strong wines, malt liquors and spirits, 
and particularly to the excessive consumption of animal food of 
the richest description, and even to the mode of clothing and 
housing, that individual diseases, such as dyspepsia, premature 
decay of teeth, and affections of the brain, may be traced." 

" The climate of New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, 
farther, has never been shown to have exercised any of those 
deadly or deleterious effects on the constitution of the first Eu- 
ropean emigrants, or of those who have followed them, which 
many climates highly vaunted for their excellence have done." 

" The west of the United States of North America, nay even 
the Eastern States, including the east shore of the beautiful Hud- 
son itself, are afflicted with the constant presence of fever and 
ague ! On the banks of the Ohio and Mississippi, where the 
fertility of the soil is great beyond comparison, I still saw it rag- 
ing, which it will continue to do until the virgin soil shall, by cul- 
tivation, clearing, introduction of European flocks, &c, be purged 
from those noxious elements which now, in chemical combina- 
tion with the atmosphere, render the respired air so prejudicial 
to health."* 

For the information of the scientific reader, I shall 
insert in an Appendix an abstract of the Meteorologi- 
cal Journal kept at Melbourne, on account of the Local 
Government, for each successive month of the year 
1845. From that Journal it will appear that the 
quantity of rain which fell in the provincial capital 
during that year, amounted to not more than 22.93 
inches. But I have already remarked that the year 
1845 was an unusually dry year in Phillipsland ; for 
Returns to which I have had access, of the quantities 



* Strzelecki, pp. 233-239, passim. 



340 



PHILLIP SL AND . 



that had fallen during two previous years, taken at 
random, afford respectively 30.72 and 27.6 inches. 
The average fall of rain, however, in the Western por- 
tion of the Province, towards the Great Southern 
Ocean, is considerably higher than at Melbourne. But 
I fear the intelligent reader will scarcely give me cre- 
dit for veracity, when I inform him that the quantity 
which fell at the Heads of Port Jackson, in the arid 
Colony of New South Wales, during the year 1845, 
was not less than 62.025 inches. " Surely," he will 
say, " it must be a mistake." And yet it is quite true. 
Nay, the quantity that fell in that locality, in the im- 
mediate neighbourhood of Sydney, during the first five 
months of the same year, was not less than 39.04 
inches, upwards of sixteen inches having fallen in one 
month. But it is unfortunate even for a dog to get 
" a bad name" — and equally so for a country. At the 
same time it must be borne in mind, that it is one of 
the beautiful arrangements of Divine Providence, that 
when there is a deficiency of rain in any one locality 
in that vast continental island, there is generally a 
super-abundance in another. 

The following is the Price-Current, to which I have 
referred in the former part of this chapter, taken from 
the Melbourne Argus, of the 10th August 1846 : — 

PRICE CURRENT, MELBOURNE. 
August 10, 1846. 

IMPORTS. 

IN EXTENSIVE AND REGULAR DEMAND. 

Rum, B.P., ] 0 O.P Gallon, £0 6 0 

Brandy, Kartell's, do 7s. to 0 8 0 

Ale, in Bottle. 

Dunbar's dozen 0 10 6 

Allsopp's, 0 11 6 

Other Brands, do. 0 11 6 

Ale, in bulk. 

Bass, hogshead None. 

Allsopp's, do. None. 

Other Brands, do. 5 0 0 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 341 



Stout in Bottle. 

Dunbar's, dozen £0 10 6 

Other Brands, do. 0 11 6 

Stout in Bulk. 

Taylor's, hogshead None 

Other Brands, do. None 

Tea, Hysonskin, chest 4 4 0' 

Congou, £ do. 5 10 0 ( 

Rice, good ordinary, lb. 0 0 2 

Salt, Liverpool, coarse, ton, 3 10 0 

Sugar, Ration, (that is, for issuing to Servants.) 

Mauritius, ...... ton 24 0 0 

Manilla, do. 24 0 0 

Java, do. 21 0 0 

Cigars, in bond. 

Manilla, No. 3, 1000 3 15 0 

do. No. 4, . . . . . do. 2 5 0 

VYoolpacks, hemp, . . . . each 0 5 0 

Sacks, 3 Bushels, .do. 0 18 

Gunny Bags, . .009 

Tow, . . lb. 0 1 4 

Hemp, . . . . . . . do. 0 1 8 

Iron, Rod and Bar, ton. 14 0 0 

Deals, 9 inch, foot 0 0 1\ 

Do. 1 1 inch, . . . . . do. 0 0 9 

Window Glass, assorted, . . 100 ft, aver. 2 15 0 



IN CONSIDERABLE DEMAND. 



Geneva in Bottle, duty paid, first quality. 



4 Gallon, 






case 


3 


0 


0 


2 do. . 








1 


11 


0 


Whisky, Scotch, 




\ 


gallon 


0 


9 


0 


Port, in bulk, good, 






. pipe 


50 


0 


0 


in Bottle, 




dozen. 


15s. to 


2 


0 


0 


Sherry, in bulk, good, . 






. butt 


50 


0 


0 


in Bottle, 




dozen. 


20s. to 


1 


16 


0 










14 


0 


0 


Light Wines, 






do. 


16 


0 


0 


Tarragona, 






. do. 


14 


0 


0 


Sugar. 














W. I. Grocers, 






ton 


28 


0 


0 


English, refined, 






lb. 


0 


0 


s 


Raisins, Muscatels, . 






lb. 


0 


0 


i i 


Cape, 






lb. 


0 


0 


6 


Currants, 






lb. 


0 


0 


6 



342 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



Rice, fine table, lb. £0 0 4 

Salt, fine table in 2 lb packages, . . . doz. 0 4 0 

* St. Ube's, ton. 5 0 0 

Saltpetre, lb. 0 0 5 

Oatmeal, Scotch, lb. 0 0 3 



Vinegar, English, gallon 0 3 6 

Pickles, assorted Quarts, .... doz. 013 0 

Pints, . . . .do. 0 12 0 

Mustard, in lb. Bottles, .... doz. 0 18 0 

Pepper, Black, lb. 0 0 64 

Soda, in Crystals, ..... cwt. 0 14 0 

Blue, Thumb, lb. 0 1 2 , 

Candles, 



vUill UUol LiOH ciiiU. OUclllJ, * . • • 


lb. 


0 


1 


9 


Hops. 










English, ...... 


. lb. 


0 


3 


0 


American, 


lb. 


0 


1 


6 






7 


0 


0 


White Lead, 


do. 


30 


0 


0 


Oil, Linseed, Raw, .... 


gallon 


0 


5 


6 


Do. Boiled, .... 


* do. 


0 


6 


0 




do 


0 


5 


6 


Corrosive Sublimate, ..... 


lb. 


0 


6 


0 


Cordage, Europe, ..... 


. cwt. 


2 


5 


0 


Do. Manilla, patent, .... 


do. 


2 


5 


0 




yard 


0 


1 


0 


Seaming Twine, ...... 


lb. 


0 


1 


3 




each 


3 


0 


0 


Earthenware, Invoice, 80 per cent, advance. 










Lead, Sheet, 


ton 


26 


0 


0 


Shot, assorted, ..... 


. do. 


25 


0 


0 


Hoop Iron, 


do. 


20 


0 


0 



Wool, Washed, 1st quality, 

Ordinary, .... 

Skin and Grease, 

In Grease, .... 
Tallow, best Beef, . 
Hides, large size, 
Sheep Skins, with Wool, 
Horns, ..... 
Bones, Shank, 

Do others, .... 
Bark, Chopped, 

Red Gum, Wood, ±x7 and 2±x3i, 
Beef, 



lb. 


0 1 


1 


lb. 


0 1 


1 


lb. 


0 0 


10 


lb. 


0 0 


7 


. ton 


28 0 


0 


each 


0 6 


6 


. do. 


0 2 


6 


123 


0 8 


0 


. ton 


4 10 


0 


do. 


1 10 


0 




None. 




ioo a 


0 6 


0 


tierce 


3 0 


0 



CAPABILITIES FOR EXTENSIVE EMIGRATION. 343 



Hams, ...... each 

Potatoes, ....... ton 

Provisions, &c. 

Wheat, Bushel, 

Barley do. 

Oats, do. . . 

Maize, do. 

Flour, 1st, . . . . . 2000 lbs. 

Do. 2d, do. 

Bran, Bushel, 

Hay, . . ton 

Bacon, lb. 

Cheese, Best, lb. 

Live Stock. 

Sheep, mixed flocks, clean, clipped, with Station, 
each, . . . . . . . 

Wethers, each, 

Cattle, mixed herds, with Station, each, 

Fat Bullocks, cwt. 

Milch Cows, ...... each 

Working Bullocks, .... pair 

Horses, good Hacks, .... do. 

Sundries. 

Starch, lb. 

Candies, . . . ... . lb. 

Soap, ....... cwt. 

Colonial, . . . . 

Salt, Native, . . . . . . ton 

Tobacco, N. S. W. . . . . . lb. 

Retailed Articles. 

Bread, 4 lb. loaf, . ... . lb. 
Mutton Pies (Anderson's) . . . dozen 

Beef, lb. 

Mutton, ...... lb. 

Pork, . . ... . .lb. 

Butter, lb. 

Milk, . quart 

Eggs, . dozen 

Poultry, pair 

Turkeys, ...... each 

Geese, . . , . . . each 

Ducks, pair 

Native Turkeys, ..... each 



£0 0 10 
4 0 0 



0 5 6 

0 5 0 

0 4 6 
None. 

14 0 0 

12 10 0 

0 0 10 

4 0 0 

0 1 0 

0 0 6 



0 9 0 

0 8 0 

1 10 0 
0 8 0 

2 10 0 
7 7 0 

18 0 0 



0 0 H 

0 0 4i 

1 6 0 
1 8 0 
3 0 0 
0 0 9 



0 0 

0 3 

0 0 

0 0 

0 0 

0 1 

0 0 

0 1 



7 
0 
o 
2 
4 
4 
3 
6 

0 2 0 
0 6 3 
0 7 0 
0 3 9 
0 7 0 



CHAPTER X. 



THE SQUATTING SYSTEM. 

After having travelled along with me so many 
hundred miles through the Australian wilderness, the 
reader will not require to be reminded of what is meant, 
by the term Squatter, in the Australian dialect of the 
English language. The Squatting System, as distin- 
guished from the leases of Crown Land that are granted 
Witbiji the Boundaries, or limits of counties in the com- 
paratively settled portions of the Colony, is thus de- 
scribed by His Excellency. Sir George Gipps. in a 
letter to Lord Stanlev. of date, Government House. 
Sydney. 3d April 1SU :— 

A lease within the boundaries is for a definite quantity of land, 
generally a square mile (whether measured or only taken by 
estimation), and the lease is strictly limited to one year. For the 
most part the lessees have lands of their own on which they live; 
and they frequently take on lease the lands of the Crown which 
lie contiguous to their own, in order only to prevent their falling 
into the hands of others ; and I may add, although it is not ma- 
terial to the point under consideration, that they often occupy 
seven or eight square miles, paying rent only for one or two. 

Beyond the boundaries, the country never having been sur- 
veyed, there is no division either real or pretended, into allot- 
ments or sections of square miles ; the quantity of land therefore 
occupied by any squatter under the denomination of a " Station/' 
or a f Run," is altogether indefinite, and the price of a license is 
equally £10 for everybody, whatever may be the extent of his 
run, or the number of sheep or cattle depastured on it. Parties, 
originally, in taking up their runs, were limited only by their own 
moderation, or by the pressure of other squatters on them, and it 
was this pressure of one squatter on another, and the disagree- 



THE SQUATTING SYSTEM. 



345 



ments which arose therefrom, added to contests with the Abori- 
gines, which led, in the year 1837, to the first appointment of 
Crown Commissioners. 

These Commissioners are Stipendiary Magistrates, appointed 
to collect the dues of the Crown, as well as to keep the peace 
within the district ; and they enjoy some peculiar powers under 
the Acts passed to restrain the unauthorised occupation of Crown 
Lands. Still, however, the extent of runs beyond the boundaries 
is often ill-defined, and no man has any property in the soil which 
he occupies. 

If your Lordship will now cast your eye over the accompanying 
rough map, or rather outline of this colony, a glance will suffice 
to show the immense extent to which the squatting, as it is called, 
has grown : — From Wilson's Promontory, on the south, to Har- 
vey's Bay, on the north, it extends through fourteen degrees of 
latitude, with an average width of four degrees of longitude, and 
a straight line passing through the centre of it, from the bottom 
of Harvey's Bay (in latitude twenty-five degrees south, longitude 
one hundred and fifty -two degrees east, to the mouth of the 
Glenelg, on the southern confine of South Australia), measures 
eleven hundred English statute miles. 

This vast extent of country is divided into fifteen districts, and 
the total amount of population and stock on it, according to the 
latest returns, was as follows : — 

Population (souls), ..... 9.885 

Horses, 15,052 

Horned cattle, 573,114 

Sheep, 3,023,408 

Though as the returns of stock are taken for the purposes of an 
assessment, raised under the 16th clause of the Local Act, 2 Vic- 
toria, Xo. 27, the numbers are considered to be below the truth. 
So rapid, too, in this colony, is the increase of sheep, cattle, and 
horses, that this wide extent of country has been overrun in the 
course of fourteen or fifteen years. 

That such a system was objectionable in the highest 
degree, from the extreme inequality of its operation, 
must be obvious to any person who gives the subject 
the slightest consideration. Certain of the Squatters — 
not a few, indeed, of the most influential of thebody r — 
have doubtless been in the habit of comparing theTTaste 
Lands of the colony to a parish-common, over which all 
the inhabitants of the parish are alike free to depas- 
ture their herds, or to the sea, in which any person is at 
liberty to fish wherever he pleases. But as the native 
pastures of Australia had proved to be a source of great 
wealth, it was fitting, on the one hand, that they should 



346 



PHILLIP SLAXD. 



also be made a source of Revenue. and, on the other, that 
that revenue should be in some degree proportioned to 
the benefit enjoyed. But it was intolerable for the 
inhabitants of a free country, enjoying in some mea- 
sure at least the institutions of Britain, to have a system 
of this kind, affecting as it did perhaps three-fourths of 
the property of the colony, completely revolutionized 
by the simple fiat of absolute authority. Such, how- 
ever, was the character and origin of the following 
Regulations, which were published by authority, and 
without previous warning of any kind, during the gov- 
ernment of Sir George Gipps. in the month of April 
1SU :— 

Colonial Secretary's Office, 
Sydney, 2d Aptii, 1844. 
Depasturing Licenses. 
With reference to the Regulations of the 21st May 1839, and 1 4th 
September 1840, relative to the Occupation of the Crown Lands 
beyond the boundaries of Location ; His Excellency the Gover- 
nor, in consequence of the practice which has grown up of parties 
occupying several distinct stations under one License, has been 
pleased, with the advice of the Executive Council, to direct that 
parties occupying stations in separate Districts, notwithstanding 
that the same may be contiguous, shall be required in future to 
take out a separate License for each such District, and to pay the 
established fee of ten pounds for the same ; and that no person 
shall in future be allowed to take up a new station, either in the 
same District in which his stock may be depastured, or in any 
other, without having first obtained a separate license for the same, 
under the recommendation of the Commissioner, and paid the fee 
of ten pounds thereon. 

2. His Excellency, with the advice of the Executive Council, 
has further directed, that from and after the 1st day of July 
1845, a separate license must be taken out. and the fee of ten 
pounds paid thereon, for each separate station or run occupied, 
even though situated^in the same District. 

3. Xo one station, within the meaning of these Regulations, is, 
after the 1st July 1845, to consist of more than twenty square 
miles of area, unless it be certified by the Commissioner that 
more is required for the quantity of sheep or cattle mentioned in 
the next paragraph. 

4. If the party desire to occupy more, and the Commissioner 
consider him entitled to such occupation, with reference to the 
quantity of stock possessed by him, or its probable increase within 
the ensuing three years, as well as the accommodation required 
by other parties, and the general interests of the public, an addi- 
tional license must be taken out and paid for. 



THE SQUATTING SYSTEM. 



347 



5. Every station at a greater distance than seven miles from 
any other occupied by the same party, will be deemed a separate 
station within the meaning of these Regulations, even though the 
area occupied may not altogether exceed twenty square miles ; 
and no one license will cover a station capable of depasturing 
more than 4000 sheep or 500 head of cattle, or a mixed herd of 
sheep and cattle, equal to either 500 head of cattle or 4000 sheep. 

6. No station, or part of a station, previously occupied under a 
separate license, will be incorporated with, or added to the sta- 
tion of any licensed person, unless he pay for it the price of 
another license. 

7. In other respects, the Regulations referred to will remain 
in force. 

By His Excellency's Command, 

E. Deas Thomson. 

The publication of these Regulations produced a 
wonderful ferment in the colony, which led to a modi- 
fication of the Governor's Proposal, contained in the 
following additional Regulations, which, it was alleged, 
had been privately recommended to the Home Govern- 
ment, and which were published, but not officially, a 
few days thereafter in the Sydney Herald : — 

1. Every squatter, after an occupation of five years, shall have 
an opportunity afforded to him of purchasing a portion of his run, 
not less than 320 acres, for a homestead. 

2. The value of any permanent and useful improvements which 
he may have made on the land shall be allowed to him ; but the 
land itself (exclusive of improvements) cannot be sold for less 
than the established minimum price of £1 per acre. 

3. Any person who may have purchased a homestead shall not 
be disturbed in the possession of his run during the following 
eight years. He must, however, continue to take out, for the 
unpurchased part of it, the usual license, and pay on it the usual 
fee of £10 per annum. 

4. A second purchase of not less than 320 acres shall be at- 
tended with the similar advantage of being undisturbed for the 
next eight years ; so that each successive purchase of 320 acres 
will act virtually as a renewal of an eight years' lease. 

5. The right of the Crown must, however, remain absolute, as 
it at present is, over all lands which have not been sold or grant- 
ed ; it being well understood that the Crown will not act capri- 
ciously, or unequally, and will not depart from established prac- 
tice, except for the attainment of some public benefit. 

6. Persons who may not avail themselves within a certain 
period, to be hereafter fixed, of the advantage offered to them of 
purchasing a homestead, will be exposed to the danger of having 
any part of their run offered for sale, either at the pleasure of the 



348 



PHILLIP 3L AND . 



Crown, or on the demand of an individual. The value of any 
useful and permanent improvements which they may have made 
on their lands will be secured to them, should a stranger become 

the purchaser. 

7. The person, whoever he may be, who purchases the home- 
stead, is to have the remainder of the run. 

8. All sales to be as at present by auction — the appraised value 
of permanent and useful improvements (which will be considered 
as the property of the former occupant) being added to the upset 
price of the land. 

9. As stated in the notice of 2d April, a license is not to cover 
more than 12,800 acres of land, unless it be certified by the Com- 
missioner that the 12,800 acres are not sufficient to keep in or- 
dinary seasons 4000 sheep. No existing run is, however, to be 
reduced below 12,800 acres, on account of its being capable of 
feeding more than 4000 sheep. But if any licensed person have 
on his run more than 4000 sheep, he is to pay £1 for every 1000 
above 4000. A person, therefore, having on a run of twenty 
square miles 5000 sheep, will not, as has been supposed, be re- 
quired to take out two licenses, but will be charged an extra £1 
for his license, or £1 1 instead of £10. If he has 8000 sheep, he 
will be charged £4 extra, or £14 in all. This is not stated in the 
notice of 2d April, but it forms a part of the proposals which 
were sent home, as before referred to. 

These Additional Begulations were scarcely more 
acceptable to the Squatters than the original Code. The 
mere grazing land of the colony, comprising at least 
nine-tenths of the whole extent of land occupied by the 
Squatters, it was universally allowed, was not worth any- 
thing like a pound an acre — was probably not worth 
more than five shillings at the utmost ; for as land of 
this description can only sustain a certain well-known 
amount of stock, there was a simple and easily avail- 
able criterion for ascertaining its intrinsic value, which 
is not the case with lands of the first quality — from soil 
and situation combined — for agriculture. To compel 
the Squatter, therefore, to purchase periodically, at the 
rate of one pound per acre, a certain extent of land 
which was probably not worth more than five shil- 
lings at the utmcst, and which, moreover, would have 
been of no use to him whatever from the moment that 
he lost the lease of his run. was an act of manifest in- 
justice to this whole class of the community. But the 
circumstance which filled the colonists generally — those 



THE SQUATTING SYSTEM. 



349 



of them even who in other respects had no common in- 
terest with the Squatters — with the liveliest indignation 
at the Governor's procedure, and which induced them to 
make common cause with the Squatters in the first 
instance, was that this monstrous assumption of autho- 
rity, revolutionizing, as it proposed to do,, a very large 
proportion of the property of the colony, was put forth 
by a Colonial Nero, without previously consulting the 
Representatives of the people in any way — on the mere 
strength of Her Majesty's alleged Prerogative, and as 
a matter quite as much in the ordinary course of the 
management of the Royal Domain of Australia as if 
the Captain-General and Govern or-in- Chief in and 
over one of the most important of the British Colonies 
had been a mere bailiff, hired at so much per annum, in 
Smithfield market, to manage Prince Albert's Flemish 
Farm ! 

Had the Local Government been i 4 graciously 
pleased,'' (to use the appropriate language of Colonial 
servility,) to submit the w 7 hole Squatting System, mere- 
ly for its opinion and advice, to the Legislative Coun- 
cil or collective wisdom of the Colony, — -a body from 
which that Government had surely very little to fear, 
as not fewer than twelve of its members, or one -third 
of the whole number, were Crown nominees, while 
the other two-thirds or the so-called Representatives of 
the people, (under an electoral system which provides 
indeed for the representation of horned cattle and sheep, 
but not for that of men,) were somewhat equally di- 
vided, like the Hebrew alphabet, into Radicals and 
Serviles — there is no doubt whatever that a system for 
the future management of the unappropriated waste 
lands would have been devised and recommended by 
that body to the Local Executive, equitable in itself, 
satisfactory to all concerned, and in the highest degree 
safe and beneficial for the Colony. 

In proof of this, I have only to state that Benjamin 
Boyd, Esq., one of the most extensive Squatters in the 
Colony at the time — to whose case, which had arisen 
in a perfectly regular manner, under the existing law 



850 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



and practice of the Colony, the Governor made a 
pointed but most unwarrantable and unbecoming refer- 
ence in his secret correspondence with my Lord Stanley, 
the Colonial autocrat of the day, — proposed at the 
period in question that the waste lands generally should 
be divided into suitable sheep and cattle runs ; that the 
capabilities of each of these runs for the maintenance 
of stock should be ascertained by competent persons 
appointed expressly for the purpose, by the Local Gov- 
ernment on the one hand, and the Squatters on the 
other ; and that a moderate fixed rental, in lieu both of 
License-Fee and Assessment, should be placed upon 
each, which the occupant would be required to pay 
whether he had stock on it or not, so long as the land 
should continue to lie waste, or unappropriated by 
bona fide purchasers. 

Such a system, I maintain, would have been equit- 
able in itself, satisfactory to all reasonable persons, safe 
for the various important interests involved in the 
question, and in the highest degree beneficial to the 
Colony. It would have secured for the public service 
a large amount of revenue from the waste lands, and 
left the Local Executive at liberty to make due pro- 
vision for the rapid progressive settlement of all suit- 
able parts of the country with an agricultural popula- 
tion. 

But it was not in accordance with the principles of 
that vile system of Colonial misgoverned ent, under 
which the best interests alike of the Colonies and the 
Empire generally have hitherto been compromised and 
sacrificed, to exhibit even the common decency of con- 
sulting the Eepresentatives of the people, on a subject 
in which they were all so deeply interested. The u innate 
ideas" of my Lord Stanley the Great, or rather of his 
Colonial Diminutive, were incomparably preferable to 
any conceivable amount of local experience, and the 
matter was therefore arranged, as in the glorious days 
of the good king Charles the Martyr, by a Kojal or 
Vice-regal Proclamation ! 

This, however, necessarily led to a powerfnl reaction 



THE SQUATTING SYSTEM. 



351 



on the part of the Squatters ; in which, as I have al- 
~ ready observed, the friends of constitutional freedom 
and of the Colony took part with them in the first in- 
stance, till they found that their own peculiar interests, 
as opposed to the general interests of the Colony, were 
the only object of concern with the more influential 
Squatters, and that, provided these interests were duly 
consulted by the Powers that were, they would willingly 
allow both constitutional freedom and the interests of 
the public " to go by the board." In the meantime, all 
the influence which the Squatters could procure, either 
in the Colony or in England, was brought to bear upcn 
the Home Government, to relieve them from the threat- 
ened operation of Sir George Gipps' obnoxious Regula- 
tions, and to procure for them " Fixity of Tenure, and 
Rights of Pre-emption" over their respective runs. A 
Bill was accordingly introduced into Parliament, by 
Mr. Under-Secretary Hope, but not passed, towards 
the close of the Session of 1845, under which leases of 
twenty-one years were to be granted to the Squatters, 
together with Rights of Pre-emption. A copy of this 
bill was accordingly forwarded to the Colony, by Mr 
Hope, for the opinion of the Legislative Council ; but 
in consequence of the continued pressure from without, 
a modified edition of it was submitted to Parliament 
by Her Majesty's present Government, towards the 
close of the Session of 1846, and passed into law. 
Under this modified bill, which, however, is to be ex- 
plained in certain particulars, and further modified and 
restricted, by Orders in Council not yet published, the 
Squatters are to have leases of fourteen years, and a 
right of pre-emption over their respective runs. 

Now, I have no hesitation in characterizing this 
whole system as an injudicious and bad system for the 
management of the Waste Lands in Australia. This 
indeed might be inferred from the fact that it goes to 
create an indefinite number of tenants in capite, or 
Crown Yassals in the Colony, — an arrangement w^hich 
I conceive is directly contrary to the spirit of the 
British Constitution, and the first principles of con- 



352 



PI1ILLIPSLAND. 



stitutional freedom. The simple and obvious duty of 
the Government in the case is to establish a system, 
which, without compromising the public interest, would 
create an equally numerous body of absolute proprie- 
tors of the soil. 

The system in question has been established, how- 
ever, to maintain the impracticable and absurd the- 
ory that the mere grazing-land of New South Wales, 
of which on an average it requires three and one-third 
acres to graze a single sheep, is either now or can ever 
be worth a pound an acre to the stockholder. That 
the agricultural lands of the Colony — all lands, for in- 
stance, of the first quality for cultivation, within seven 
miles of navigable water, or in a tract of country like 
the Western Plains of Phillipsland, that could easily 
be opened, up for settlement by a tram-road or wooden 
railway — are really well worth a pound an acre, 
and that the minimum price for such lands ought 
never to be reduced below that amount, I willingly ad- 
mit ; but in general there is a plain and palpable line 
of demarcation between such lands and the mere graz- 
ing-lands of the Colony, and it is equally the interest 
and the duty of the Government to draw such a line 
with ail convenient speed, and to lower the minimum 
price for all mere grazing-land to five shillings an acre. 
Nay, I would go a step farther still, and declare that 
for all mere grazing-land, within a certain distance of 
the settled districts, which should remain unsold at that 
minimum price after a certain term of years, the mini- 
mum should be reduced thereafter to half-a- crown an 
acre. Such a measure has recently been proposed for 
the unsold Waste Lands of the United States by Pre- 
sident Polk, and it is unquestionably a measure which 
in both cases recommends itself to political wisdom and 
common sense. In Australia, the difference between 
the agricultural and the mere grazing-land is far more 
palpable than in America, and the line of demarcation 
between them far more easily drawn. Of the former 
description of land there is no criterion for ascertaining 
the possible intrinsic value ; for an acre of such land 



THE SQUATTING SYSTEM. 



353 



may grow not only thirty bushels of wheat, that will 
sell for five shillings a bushel ; but forty stones of flax, 
that will sell for fifteen shillings a stone ; or a thousand 
gallons of wine that will sell for half-a-crown a gallon. 
But there can be no difficulty in ascertaining the real 
intrinsic value of mere grazing land in a country in 
w r hich, on an average, it requires ten acres of such land 
to graze three sheep. 

But the system about to be established even under 
the recently modified Lands' Act is not only injudicious 
and at variance with the first principles of British free- 
dom ; it is positively dangerous. When Mr. Hope's 
Bill happened incidentally to form the subject of dis- 
cussion in the Legislative Council of the colony, dur 
ing the Session of 1846, I did not hesitate to declare — 
although the declaration lost me the favour of some of 
the principal Squatters of the colony — that to grant 
leases to the Squatters for twenty-one years would be 
tantamount to a confiscation of the Waste Lands ; for 
if, at the close of that period, the Squatters should only 
choose to make common cause, and insist on having their 
leases converted into grants, the British Government, 
with all its military power, would be quite unable either 
to effect their ejectment, or to refuse their demands. 
And, as a proof that I was not singular in this view of 
the matter, the Colonial- Secretary, the organ of the 
Local Government, with whom I confess I happened 
very seldom to agree in opinion in matters of colonial 
policy, subsequently, at the close of the debate, ex- 
pressed his entire concurrence in my sentiments and 
view r s; admitting that, in his opiniou also, leases of their 
actual rum to the Squatters for twenty-one years would 
be tantamount to a confiscation of the Waste Lands of 
the colony. And whether the mere shortening of the 
term to fourteen years, will greatly mend the matter, 
I shall leave the reader to judge from the following 
data : — 

Long, therefore, before the termination even of the 
shorter period, the whole extent of pastoral country from 
Cape Howe to Cape York, an extent of nearly two thou- 

z 



354 



PIIILLIPSL AND . 



sand miles, and for five hundred miles and upwards in- 
land, including the recently discovered pastoral country 
at the head of the Gulf of Carpentaria, will in all pro- 
bability be in the occupation of a noble army of Squat- 
ters. Now, supposing that these gentlemen should, to- 
wards the close of this period, choose to make common 
cause, as, they showed their inclination and ability to do 
when their common interest was concerned, on the pub- 
lication of Sir George Gipps Proclamation, and simply 
insist that their leases should be converted into grants — 
determined, at the same time, to keep possession of the 
land, if their demands should be refused, and if neces- 
sary to oppose force to force — what, I ask, could even the 
Imperial Government do in such an emergency? 
Why, I shall probably be told, perhaps with a smile of 
ridicule at the bare idea of such " a storm in a tea- 
pot," that the British Government would immediately 
despatch half-a-dozen frigates, and concentrate at the 
same time an overwhelming military force, of perhaps 
twenty thousand men, from India, and Hong-Kong, 
and the Mauritius, and Ceylon, and the Cape of Good 
Hope, upon " Young Australia," to re-establish the 
Status quo and annihilate the Squatters ! 

But this is much more easily said than it could be 
done. For, in the first place, there is not a single river 
on the whole coast of Australia, that will admit a fri- 
gate into its waters, the geographical notice to all 
such strangers, at the entrance of these bar-mouthed 
streams, being u Xo admittance;" and, therefore, al- 
though each of the floating batteries should, in addi- 
tion to all its other means of annoyance, have Captain 
Warner's identical Long Range and Invisible Shell to 
bring to bear upon the country, the Squatters could, in 
perfect security, laugh to scorn the utmost efforts of 
their Invincible Armada. 

But then there would be an army of twenty thousand 
men landed on the coast, with their formidable bag- 
gage-trains, and their parks of artillery. And though 
there should — what then? Why, in the year 1844, 
during the ferment produced among the Squatters by 



THE SQUATTING SYSTEM. 



355 



the publication of the Governor's Proclamation, one of 
the leading men of that class declared in my hearing — 
and I knew well that he was saying nothing but the 
truth — that there were sheep and cattle enough in the 
colony, even at that time, to buy -off as many as twenty 
thousand soldiers, if it were coming to that with the Squat- 
ters ! And will the means of buying-off such a standing 
army of annoyance be diminished in the year 1861 — 
when the fourteen years' leases will be expiring, and 
the sheep and cattle of the colony will have increased 
fourfold ! It were folly in the extreme to suppose that 
any scheme of colonial policy — involving, as the one un- 
der consideration does, the permanency of British con- 
nexion, and the best interests of myriads of the humbler 
classes in the mother- country — can be maintained in 
the colonies, and more especially in such a country as 
Australia, by means of a standing army. Soldiers are 
very much like other people, and it were the height of 
folly to suppose that they embrace the honourable pro 
fession of arms either from an excess of loyalty or 
from a burning zeal for the honour and glory of their 
country. They do so, in at least ninety-nine cases 
out of every hundred, from the much humbler but far 
more intelligible motives of a want of remunerating 
employment in other more eligible occupations, or from 
the love of an indolent roving life, and the certainty of a 
regular provision. The last accounts from the colony 
mention that not fewer than sixteen of a single detach- 
ment of the 1 1th Regiment, which is now stationed at 
Melbourne, had already deserted; and one of the officers 
of another of the Regiments at present stationed in New 
South Wales informed me, that when that Regiment 
was in Nova Scotia, with the narrow Bay of Fundy 
between it and the United States, the desertions were 
so numerous, that His Grace the Duke of Wellington 
had actually to order the Regiment to the Bermuda 
Islands to put a stop to the process. How easy then 
would it not be for the future Squatters of 1860, to 
stimulate and accelerate that process a little, by quietly 
offering each of the twenty thousand men of the sup- 



356 



PHILLIPSLA.ND. 



posed army of occupation, who should merely " take to 
the bush" and turn Squatter too, ten head of cattle, or 
fifty sheep, to begin the world with, and perhaps a 
grant of fifty or a hundred acres of land besides, at the 
conclusion of the war ! In such a case, I venture to 
predict that the officers — whose surpassing loyalty and 
love of glory must be supposed greatly superior to all 
such unworthy considerations — would not be left with 
men sufficient to mount guard, or with music enough 
in their respective bands to play " Ower the hills an' 
far awa/' at the close of the first six months from 
the period of their landing to put down the Australian 
insurrection, and to annihilate the Squatters.* 

In such circumstances, the only sufficient check upon 
the formidable power, which downright misgovern ment 
on the one hand, and the maintenance of an impracti- 
cable system on the other., are thus creating in Austra- 
lia, to try the strength of its future manhood with 
Great Britain herself, is a numerous agricultural popu- 
lation to occupy the lands that are peculiarly fitted 
for cultivation in the colony. Such a population 
would never allow the Squatters, however formidable, 
to monopolize the Waste Lands of the country, or to 
get them for nothing. They would defend the true in- 
terests of Britain in this respect, far more effectually 
than the largest army. At the same time, it is alike 
the interest and the duty of the Imperial Government, 
to prevent the Squatters from falling into such strong 



* It has often been remarked, that the next great war m Eu- 
rope, will exhibit an entirely new phase both of offensive and de- 
fensive operations, and develop an entirely new system of tac- 
tics. And so also, I venture to predict, will the very first war 
in Australia, if the injudicious and suicidal attempt to maintain 
impracticable theories, or the refusal of their just rights to the 
colonists, should ever lead to so unhappy an issue. The buying 
off system of warfare — which, it must be allowed, is thoroughly- 
Australian in its conception, and which even the Society of Friends 
could scarcely refuse to tolerate — is one which, I presume, has 
never yet fallen within the military experience of the illustrious 
Duke himself, and I question whether it would not prove too 
much even for his consummate tactics. 



THE SQUATTING SYSTEM. 



357 



temptation, as that to which the maintenance of the 
present system will sooner or later unquestionably ex- 
pose their frail humanity, by reducing the upset price 
of mere grazing-land to the reasonable minimum I have 
recommended. 

In thus advocating the interests of Great Britain, as 
opposed to the peculiar interests of the Colonial Squat- 
ters, I trust the reader will not misunderstand me. By 
the interests of Great Britain in this connexion, I 
understand simply the interests of the humbler classes 
of the mother-country, for whose progressive emigra- 
tion to Australia — in thousands, and tens of thousands, 
and hundreds of thousands — the Waste Lands of that- 
continent may, under judicious management, be ren- 
dered directly available in supplying the funds for de- 
fraying its entire cost. In short, I consider the Waste 
Lands of Australia as the peculiar patrimony, as the 
valuable possession, of the humbler classes of the 
mother-country, for whose benefit — in rendering them 
available to the utmost possible extent in promoting 
the emigration of numerous families and individuals 
of these classes to Australia — the Imperial Govern- 
ment is merely a trustee. It was on behalf of these 
classes, as well as of the colony at large, that I entered 
my protest in the Legislative Council against the grant- 
ing of twenty-one years' leases to the Squatters, as such 
a measure I conceived would be a virtual confiscation 
of their valuable property ; for I confess I should con- 
sider it a great calamity indeed to these classes, as well 
as to the colony generally, for that property to be lost 
to both through some such consummation as the one I 
have supposed — a consummation which is evidently 
not only within the verge of possibility, but very much 
within that of probability also. I wish by all means to 
see that most extensive and valuable property turned 
to the best possible account in the shortest possible time, 
through the establishment of a better system for the 
management of the Waste Lands and the promotion of 
an extensive emigration; and I feel persuaded that both 
of these important objects will be most effectually pro- 



58 



PHILLIPSLA^D. 



moted by some such arrangement as the one I have 
taken the liberty to recommend. 

Although, as I have already observed, it is now ra- 
ther difficult, if not impracticable, to procure a new 
Squatting Station in Phlllipsland, stations are daily in 
the market, and passed from hand to hand at their 
supposed value. It is generally the stock, however — 
the sheep and cattle — that are sold in these bargains, 
together with the right of Station; but so valuable is 
this right of itself in particular cases, that I was cre- 
dibly informed, only a few days before I left the co- 
lony for England, that the mere right of Station had 
just been sold in a particular instance in New South 
Wales for a thousand pounds. 

I had intended to append to this chapter Tables il- 
lustrative of the probable results of sheep and cattle 
farming in the Province. On second thoughts, how- 
ever, I have resolved not to do so. They are gene- 
rally fallacious, as a criterion for an intending emigrant 
to judge by, although they may be perfectly correct as 
a representation of the actual results in the particular 
cases from which they are taken. 

I have shown sufficiently in the course of this volume, 
that there are many instances of the most extensive 
Squatters having commenced with nothing : still, how- 
ever, it is not expedient, as a general rule, for any emi- 
grant to enter upon this line of life unless he is possessed 
of from c£l000 to £1200 ; and if two persons, each pos- 
sessing that amount of capital, and having mutual con- 
fidence in each other's ability and integrity, should en- 
ter into partnership, it would be so much better for 
both, as the expenses of a comparatively small estab- 
lishment are very nearly as great as those of a large 
one. 

As another general rule, it may be taken for granted, 
that if a sufficient number of sheep or cattle can be 
obtained at a moderate price, as is practicable at pre- 
sent, together with the right of Station, and if these 
sheep or cattle are judiciously managed, they will yield 
a handsome return to the owner. This is the un- 



THE SQUATTING SYSTEM. 



359 



doubted experience of the colour ; for individual cases 
of ruin, however numerous, originating in the purchase 
of stock at enormous prices, militate in no degree 
against this general proposition. It is confirmed, more- 
over, by the undeniable fact, that successful metamor- 
phoses into Squatters are constantly taking place in 
the colony in the case of men of all conditions of life — 
of all conceivable grades and professions. 

Besides, the results of Squatting, as compared with 
the necessary expenditure which it implies, are some- 
times understated as well as overstated in these Tables ; 
and one must know the particular purpose for which 
they are exhibited before he can place implicit confi- 
dence in their formidable arrays of figures — for " the 
first year," and " the second year," and so on to the fifth 
inclusive. For instance, I\lr. Lang, the author of "Land 
and Labour in Australia ; their Past, Present, and 
Future Connexion and Management," gives a series of 
such Tables in his Pamphlet, exhibiting the results of 
Squatting, both as to expenditure and profits, on Sta- 
tions of 4000 and 7000 sheep, and 1300 head of cattle 
respectively, which, I am quite sure, as he did me the 
honour to send me a copy of the Pamphlet, I might 
insert here without special permission. But I was so 
much amused at the i; inferences" which Mr. L. de- 
duces from his " Tables," that I deemed it preferable 
to present the former to the reader with a few notes and 
comments, and to keep the latter in " pickle," as they 
evidently required a few " grains of salt." 

Mr. Lang, therefore, lays it down as a fixed principle, 
that " Waste Land is of no intrinsic value, apart from, 
the capital and labour expended upon it by the Squat- 
ter ;'' from which he deduces the very convenient con- 
clusion, that it ought to be given to the latter, free of 
cost, in as large quantities as he chooses to occupy. To 
this favourite, but notorious fallacy of the Squatters, I 
would merely reply, that the very same thing holds 
equally true of innumerable other commodities — of 
wool and flax for example — of which the intrinsic va- 
lue is never questioned., as well as of Waste Land. 



360 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



Of what intrinsic value, I would ask, is either of these 
commodities, apart from its wonderful adaptation, un- 
der the Divine constitution of things in the material 
world, to yield a proper return for the expenditure of 
capital and labour bestowed upon it ? Apart from this 
consideration, a fleece of wool is just of as little use 
or value to any man as an acre of Waste Land. 

In conformity to this principle, therefore, Mr. Lang 
proposes that every Squatter should have as much 
Waste Land as he can occupy, free of all cost, for at 
least eight years. In deference, however, to an ill-in- 
formed public opinion, of which he finds his favourite 
principle considerably in advance, he is willing that 
the Squatter should, at the close of the eight years of 
gratuitous occupation, be required to pay a fair and 
sufficient price for as much Waste Land as his stock 
will then cover — from 20,000, perhaps, to 100,000 
acres — to which, on such terms, he should have an 
unquestionable right. 

What then, the reader will ask, with some degree 
of curiosity, is this fair and sufficient price ? Why 9 
Mr. Lang, modestly diffident of his own judgment, he- 
sitates not a little between three half-pence as a mini- 
mum, and sevenpence as a maximum price per acre 
for this intrinsically valueless commodity ; but he is 
decidedly of opinion that threepence or fourpence an acre 
would be quite sufficient to form a Land Fund large 
enough to import all the free immigrant labour the coun- 
try would ever require as a grand Squatter's Paradise ! 

But how, again, is this fair and sufficient price to be 
paid ? Why, with a degree of benevolent considera- 
tion for the Squatters, which must surely entitle him 
to their lasting gratitude, Mr. Lang proposes to line 
their grievous yoke of having anything to pay for the 
Waste Land at all, by recommending that it should be 
payable in the course of fifteen years, by the same 
number of equal annual instalments ! 

No wonder then, that Mr. Lang's pamphlet should 
have been treated by the whole Squatting interest of 
Australia as one of the ablest productions of the age — 



THE SQUATTING SYSTEM. 



361 



that it should have been reprinted in Sydney, from 
the Melbourne original, with the Imprimatur of the 
Body — that it should have been quoted and lauded to 
the utmost, from one end of the colony to the other, 
at all their assemblages. 

Such, then, it cannot be doubted — -for they have vir- 
tually adopted them — are the peculiarly selfish views 
and exorbitant pretensions of a large proportion of the 
Australian Squatters ! Such are the terms they would 
make for themselves, if they had only the power of 
making them ! Such is the heartless style in which 
they would appropriate for their own private uses the 
splendid patrimony of the humbler classes of the 
United Kingdom in the Waste Lands of Australia ! 

In one word, there are three forms of ascendancy, 
which three different parties are at present, each in its 
own proper sphere, labouring to establish in Australia ; 
and I confess I am at a loss to determine which of 
them would be the most injurious to the best interests 
of the country, or the most opposed to the cause of 
civil and religious liberty in the land. The first of 
these is a Popish ascendancy ; the second is a Pusey- 
ite ascendancy, and the third is a Squatting ascen- 
dancy. 



* For a List of the holders of Squatting Licenses in Phillips- 
land, see Appendix. B. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 

A civil officer, with the title of Superintendent, has 
hitherto had the credit of administering the local go- 
vernment of Phillipsland — such as it has been. He 
has, in reality, been a mere our-of-door clerk in the 
Colonial Secretary's Department at Sydney — charged 
with the execution of the ukases of an absentee, ill- 
informed and arbitrary governor ; destitute of even the 
semblance of authority himself ; mingling not a little 
in the party strifes of the Province, and giving such a 
colouring, in his private representations of men and of 
actions, to the Grand Seignior in the distance, as suit- 
ed his own prejudices, antipathies, or caprice. It 
would have been difficult indeed to have defined either 
the duties or the exact position of this political ano- 
maly, if he had not done it himself, with equal brevity 
and felicity, when he described himself, at a certain 
convivial meeting in Melbourne, as " Second Fiddle to 
Sir George Gipps." To continue His Honour's appro- 
priate metaphor, the two violins were certainly in 
" perfect harmony:" there was no m note" of remon- 
strance ever heard on the part of the " Second Fiddle/' 
against the arbitrary, unjust, and tyrannical measures 
of the " First :" but this " harmony" in the political 
orchestra was nevertheless inauspicious and disastrous 
for the people ; in regard to whose real and permanent 
interests both of these political fiddlers, like many other 
abler performers on the same humble instrument, were 
literally " stone-blind." 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



363 



In such circumstances, combined with the various 
sources of grievance I have enumerated elsewhere, it 
was to be expected, as a matter of course, that an in- 
tense desire should arise among the inhabitants of Phil- 
lipsland for their entire separation from New South 
Wales, and their erection into a separate and indepen- 
dent colony. Public Meetings were accordingly held 
in the Province from an early period after its original 
settlement ; Separation-Committees were appointed, 
and petitions numerously and respectably signed were 
forwarded first to the Imperial Parliament, and after- 
wards to the Local Legislature. But these proceedings 
proved unavailing ; for under the Stanley autocracy, it 
was the usual practice to treat all such petitions from 
the colonies with silent neglect. 

In the year 1842, however, a new light was suppos- 
ed to have broken in upon the Province in regard to 
the Separation question. In that year an Act of the 
Imperial Parliament was passed, at the instance of 
Lord Stanley, granting a Constitution, such as it was, 
to the Colony; in virtue of which a Legislative Council 
was constituted consisting of thirty-six members, of 
whom one-third were to be nominated by the Crown, 
and the rest elected by the people. Of this Council the 
inhabitants of the district of Port Phillip were autho- 
rised to elect six members — one for the town of Mel- 
bourne, and five for the district ; and as certain of my 
personal friends in that part of the country, where 
a large proportion of the more respectable classes of 
society consisted of emigrants from Scotland, proposed 
that I should be put in nomination for the district, I 
consented, and was nominated accordingly. To the 
general principle involved in such a proposal — that of 
ministers of religion being members of political assem- 
blies — I confess I am strongly opposed ; but there were 
circumstances at the period in question which appear- 
ed to justify an exception in my own favour in that 
particular case ; and although there had been no in- 
stance of a clerical member of an Elective Legislature 
in the previous history of British colonization, there 



364 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



were three precedents in other quarters which tended 
materially to strengthen my opinion. The first of 
these was the case of the Rev. Dr. Witherspoon, an 
eminent minister of the Church of Scotland, about the 
middle of last century, and afterwards President of a 
College in New Jersey, and member of the First Ame- 
rican Congress. The second was that of Dr. Timothy 
Dwight, afterwards President of Yale College in the 
United States, who was twice a member of the Legis- 
lature of the State of Massachusetts, when a parish 
minister in that State. The third was that of the Rev. 
Alexander Shields, an eminent minister of the Church 
of Scotland, who had suffered persecution, and been 
banished for conscience' sake to America, under the 
tyranny of the Stuarts, in the seventeenth century ; for 
shortly after the Revolution this minister, having been 
selected by the General Assembly of the Church of 
Scotland to accompany the emigrants to the unfortu- 
nate Scotch Colony at the Isthmus of Darien, was 
authorized by the Supreme Council at Edinburgh to 
sit and vote in the Legislative Council, or Local Legis- 
lature of that colony. 

From my own position at the time in question, as 
the head of an Academical Institution in the colony, 
against which the Local Government had just insti- 
tuted a most vexatious proceeding in the Colonial Law 
Courts (in which, however, I am happy to say, they 
have since signally failed), it was highly expedient and 
necessary for me, as a means and measure of defence, 
to avail myself of the offer that was thus made me, at 
so seasonable a conjuncture, of a seat in Council. I 
was also in hopes of being enabled, in that capacity, to 
promote the cause of general education throughout the 
colony. But I confess my principal object was, if pos- 
sible, to prevent the recurrence of a similar calamity to 
that which had already befallen the colony through the 
misappropriation of the Land Revenue and the prodigi- 
ous influx of L'ish Popery, occasioned through the high- 
ly culpable neglect and mismanagement of the former 
Legislative Council, and the Local Government. 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



365 



And with this ohject in view, which I was at no 
pains to conceal, it is somewhat remarkable that the 
general election at Port Phillip should have turned 
eventually upon the question whether that splendid 
province was thenceforth to be subjected to Romish 
dictation, and to be under the absolute control of an 
Irish Roman Catholic mob. The Act of Parliament, 
commonly called the Constitutional Act, authorized 
the province of Port Phillip to return six members to 
the Legislative Council — one for the town of Mel- 
bourne, the capital of the province, and five for the 
District. For several months before the election the 
only candidate for the town was Mr. Edward Curr, a 
gentleman originally from the north of England, who 
had amassed considerable property as manager of the 
Van Dieman's Land Agricultural Company, and had 
settled in Port Phillip ; for although Mr. Curr was 
known to be a Roman Catholic, he was understood to 
be a liberal man, and Protestants of all denominations 
were therefore willing to support him. But not satis- 
fied with his own unquestioned return for the town of 
Melbourne, which was then indubitable, Mr. Curr had 
the folly and infatuation, very shortly before the General 
Election, to denounce me, both at public meetings and 
through the press, as an unfit and improper person to re- 
present the District, on account of a pamphlet I had writ- 
ten entitled " The Question of Questions," calling the 
attention of the Protestants of the colony to the various 
political and other evils that were likely to result from 
the immense preponderance of Irish Roman Catholic 
immigration. This pamphlet, which was merely a 
statement of undeniable facts, with the inferences which 
they warranted, Mr. Curr, (at the suggestion, as was 
supposed, of the Romish priesthood,) was pleased to hold 
forth as the most atrocious of calumnies against " the 
finest pisantry in Europe ;" and even when he found 
the tide running strongly in my favour, on my visiting 
the District in person and confronting him at a public 
meeting in Melbourne, he had the unparalleled folly 
and presumption to tell the electors, in a printed letter, 



366 



PHILLIP SL AND. 



that if they elected me for the District, they could not 
have the benefit of his services for the town, " as he 
was determined not to sit with such a person." That 
there might be no doubt also, as to the Romish charac- 
ter and object of this manoeuvre, there was a zealous 
Roman Catholic from the Highlands of Scotland, who 
had been educated at Rome for the priesthood, but had 
afterwards become a settler at Port Phillip (having ob- 
tained a free passage out, with all his family, through 
my instrumentality, during the last period of Highland 
destitution in 1837), who was employed by the priests 
to perambulate the District to vilify me in every pos- 
sible way, and to inflame the minds of the Irish Roman 
Catholics against me wherever they could be assembled 
in any number. 

In such circumstances, it became quite evident that 
the question as to whether I should be elected or not, 
for the District of Port Phillip, involved the far more 
important question of Romish ascendancy, or whether 
that splendid province was thenceforth to be under the 
perpetual dictatorship of an arrogant and presumptuous 
individual, influenced himself by the Romish priest- 
hood, and exercising by their means unlimited control 
over an irrational and infuriated populace. The Pro- 
testant inhabitants of Melbourne accordingly saw the 
matter in this light, and determined at the eleventh 
hour to take Mr. Curr at his w^ord, and to relieve him 
of the necessity of sitting w 7 ith me in the Legislative 
Council. The Mayor of the Town, an unpretending 
Scotchman, was accordingly induced at the last moment 
to allow himself to be put in nomination, and, notwith- 
standing every effort on the part of Mr. Curr and his 
friends, carried the election by a large majority. 

The disappointment and rage of the Irish Roman 
Catholics (who were principally of the lowest class of 
society in the province, comprising very few voters), at 
this unexpected defeat of their champion, were extreme, 
and a scene of riot and disorder of the most alarming 
description ensued. The houses of individuals who 
were known to have exerted themselves for the mayor 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



67 



were attacked, and their persons maltreated, and one 
respectable inhabitant of the town, the shutters of whose 
windows had been torn off by a furious assemblage of 
" Tipperaray boys" (whose passage out as free immigrants 
under the Bounty System had been paid for with the funds 
contributed as the price of land by the Protestant inhabit- 
ants of the province), had to fire on his assailants for the 
protection of his life and property ; when the fall of one 
of their number, who, providentially, however, was not 
mortally wounded, repressed the violence of the blood 
thirsty ruffians. Nay, Mr. Curr publicly boasted, after 
the election, that the inhabitants of Melbourne had to 
thank him (through his influence with the Irish Roman 
Catholics) that the town had not been burned about 
their ears ! It was doubtless rather an imprudent ad- 
mission on the part of that gentleman ; but it was pecu- 
liarly instructive to the community, as it taught Pro- 
testants what they had to expect if they ventured to 
assert their freedom as British subjects, as well as what 
atrocities would be perpetrated without hesitation to 
secure and perpetuate Romish ascendancy.* 



* An instructive exhibition of this kind has been afforded at 
Melbourne since I left the colony, In consequence of the pecu- 
liarly offensive attitude of Irish Popery in the province, various 
Societies of Orangemen have recently been formed in Melbourne, 
the members of which had, it seems, resolved to dine together a 
one of the hotels in the town on the 1 3th of July last, the 12th hav- 
ing fallen on a Sabbath. Before the dinner took place, the usual 
Orange flags or emblems were displayed from the windows of the 
hotel, but no procession of any kind was contemplated. The ex- 
hibition of these flags, however, proved a signal for the assem- 
blage of a numerous and furious Irish Roman Catholic Bounty 
Immigrant mob, armed in many instances with fire-arms and 
other lethal weapons, and the occurrence of a serious and alarm- 
ing riot. Shots were fired on both sides, and several Orangemen 
maltreated by the rioters, but providentially without loss of life 
on either side ; for the Mayor and other town authorities inter- 
fered, the Riot Act was read, the military were called in, and, in 
deference to the mob, the Orange flags were ordered down, and the 
dinner prohibited. The pusillanimity and imbecility of the town 
authorities on the occasion, and their mean subserviency and 
truckling to the Romish rioters, were the most remarkable fea- 



368 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



Nay, to such an extent has the reign of terror been 
established at Melbourne ever since, from the system- 
atic manner in which a regular concourse of the lower 
Irish of the Roman Catholic communion is uniformly 
assembled to overawe public opinion on any occasion 
of general interest to the community, and to carry by 
main force whatever measures may be agreeable to the 
Romish priesthood or the demagogues of the day, that 
a merchant of the Jewish persuasion, settled at Mel- 
bourne and universally respected, observed, in the 
month of February last, when conversing with a per- 
sonal friend of mine, a magistrate of the territory, 44 If 
these people continue to be sent out to us in such num- 
bers, every Jew in the place will leave it : they will 
consider the country as doomed !" 

When Mr. Curr was thus unable to secure his own 
election for the town of Melbourne, he was not likely 
to prevent mine for the District ; and this two -fold de- 
feat, at a time when a Roman Catholic dictatorship for 
the entire province, somewhat similar to that of Mr. 
O'Connell in Ireland, would otherwise have been estab- 
lished, was universally regarded by the Protestant in- 
habitants of Port Phillip as a most providential occur- 
rence for their future peace and welfare. 

In this capacity, therefore, I determined from the first 
to use e ray effort for the speedy and entire Separation of 
the province of Port Phillip from the colony of New 
South Wales; not only because it was the universal de- 
sire of the inhabitants of the province, but because I 



tures of the case. I am no Orangeman myself, and I deprecate 
all such party emblems and demonstrations as those that have 
been usual in certain quarters on the 12th of July ; but in a 
town in which the most offensive displays and exhibitions of Irish 
Popery in flags and processions had been permitted for years to- 
gether by the town authorities and the Protestant public, it was 
intolerable that peaceful citizens assembling for any purpose, and 
even displaying their banners, as the Melbourne Orangemen did, 
should have been permitted to be attacked and assaulted with 
impunity by a Romish mob. The town was in a state of anarchy 
for two days on the occasion. 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



369 



believed it to be absolutely necessary for their good gov- 
ernment, and likely, moreover, to have a most important 
and salutary bearing on the cause of civil and religious 
liberty, and on that of good government generally, in 
New South "Wales. The results of the Transportation 
System, and the prevalence of a despotic form of govern- 
ment in that colony for fifty years, together vrith various 
other influences to which it is unnecessary to allude more 
particularly, had very much prevented the development 
of that spirit of British freedom and manly independence 
which it is so desirable to cherish in all colonial com- 
munities ; and it appeared to me, that if a community 
of recent and thoroughly British origin were to be con- 
stituted, and invested with the powers of self-govern- 
ment, even to a limited extent, in Port Phillip, it would 
be likely to advance with much greater rapidity in the 
right direction, and thereby to exert a salutary innu- 
ence, in the way of example, on New South Wales. 

There was no opportunity, however, of advocating 
the cause of Separation during the first Session of the 
new Legislative Council, which was held in the year 
1843 ; but on the first day of the second Session of that 
Body, in the year 1844, I gave notice of a Motion on 
the subject, which eventually came on for discussion on 
the 20th of August of that year. The following is a 
report of the speech introdueiijp: the Motion and stating 
the case of Port Phillip, with a briefer notice of the one 
in which the Motion was seconded, from the Colonial 
Observer of the 2 2d August 1844 : — 

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. 

Tuesday, 20th August 1844. 

SEPARATION OF PORT PHILLIP. 

Certain routine business having been transacted, the Rev. Dr. 
Lang was called on, in accordance with his notice on the paper, to 
move " That a humble Address be presented to Her Majesty the 
Queen, praying that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to 
direct that the requisite steps may be taken for the -peedy and 
entire separation of the District of Port Phillip from the Terri- 
tory of New South Wales, and its erection into a separate and in- 
dependent Colony," and accordingly addressed the House to the 
following effect : — 

2 A 



570 



PHILLIP SL AND . 



Mr. Speaker, — It is possible that the motion with which I am 
to conclude my address this day may be regarded by certain hon- 
ourable members as a mere second and inferior edition of the 
famous cry of "Justice to Ireland," and "Repeal of the Union 
with Great Britain for I have no hesitation in acknowledging 
that the burden of my song on the present occasion will be u Jus- 
tice to Port Phillip," and a " Repeal of the union of that District 
with this Colony." But I would beg to remind hon. members 
that there is a vast difference between the two cases ; for whereas 
the party at home, who use the watchwords I have mentioned, are 
a formidable political party, clesirous of effecting extensive or- 
ganic changes in the constitution and government of the mother- 
country, I trust I shall make it quite evident before I sit down 
that the measure to which my motion points is a measure not only 
perfectly harmless in itself, and that aims no such insidious blow 
at the root of the British constitution, but one in perfect accord- 
ance with the uniform practice of the British Government in the 
best times of British colonization. 

In the year 1834, exactly ten years ago, certain respectable 
inhabitants of Van Dieman's Land, finding the limits of that 
colony too narrow for their rapidly-increasing flocks and herds, 
bethought themselves of crossing over the intervening Straits to 
Port Phillip (of the attempted settlement of which thirty years 
before there was some indistinct recollection in that island), in 
search of a suitable pastoral country on the Southern shores of 
this continent. I need not inform the Council how successful 
these enterprising individuals were, beyond all anticipation, in 
their search — discovering, as they did, the extensive and beauti- 
fully undulating pastoral country to the westward of the present 
settlements of Melbourne and Geelong — a country of w r hich the 
j3ortions over which I have myself ridden might vie, even in its 
natural uncultivated state, with the fairest scenes ever described 
by the poets in Arcadia. The discovery of such a country — 
which was ascertained from the subsequent and splendid dis- 
coveries of my late honourable colleague, the Survey or- General, 
to extend to a great distance to the northward and westward — 
and the fascinating descriptions that were given of it by its dis- 
coverers, naturally produced an astonishing sensation throughout 
the sister island. It turned the heads of half the colony of Van 
Dieman's Land. It almost immediately lowered the value of 
land throughout that island nearly fifty per cent., from the gene- 
ral desire it induced to be off to the Eldorado on the southern 
shores of New Holland. In short, every settler's son who had a 
spark of life in him, besought his father for the portion of goods — 
I mean of sheep and cattle — that he was fairly entitled to, and 
hied himself off with them to Port Phillip. I happened to be in 
Van Dieman's Land myself during the height of this excitement, 
towards the close of the year 18^5. It was almost the only topic 
of conversation at the time in every quarter on either side of the 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



371 



island. Every respectable person you met with was either ac- 
tually in the speculation himself, or had some son or brother in 
it, or had sheep and cattle in it, or had shares in one or other of 
the joint-stock companies that were got up on the occasion. It 
was even rumoured that the Lieutenant-Governor, with most of 
the civil officers of the colony, was deep in the speculation. In 
one word, there was a universal packing-up for Port Phillip at the 
period of my visit, on both sides of the island, and the prospect of 
rapid fortune-making that seemed to be universally indulged in on 
the occasion reminded me very forcibly of the old Scotch song, 

" Fy, let us a' to the bridal." 

So extensive indeed was the emigration both of persons and stock 
of all kinds from Van Dieman's Land to Port Phillip at the time 
I refer to, that at a comparatively early period in the year 1836, 
there were several hundred persons from that island established 
at Port Phillip, while upwards of 50,000 sheep, with cattle and 
horses in proportion, had been conveyed thither across Bass' 
Straits. Situated as the country which was thus taken possession 
of is, at the distance of 600 or 700 miles from Sydney, it was 
never supposed that it would ever have any connexion with this 
colony. Nay, I may add, such a connexion was entirely acci- 
dental, even as far as the authorities of this colony were con- 
cerned. The Van Dieman's Land adventurers took possession of 
tlie country under the idea that the Aborigines, whom they found 
roaming over it, were the undisputed lords of its soil. Extensive 
purchases of land were accordingly made from these Aborigines, 
by the agents of the various joint-stock companies I have men- 
tioned — millions of acres being bought for a few blankets and 
figs of tobacco — regular deeds were made out, and signed, sealed, 
and delivered in due form by the black natives ; and copies of 
these deeds having been sent home, with a regular account of 
their proceedings in the formation of a new settlement on a por- 
tion of the coast and territory of the great Australian continent 
previously unknown, the adventurers actually expected to be 
confirmed in their possessions and to be governed as a depend- 
ency of Van Dieman's Land. Honourable members will per- 
ceive, therefore, that the settlement of Port Phillip was not a 
mere offshoot from this colony, like those of Port Macquarie and 
Moreton Bay. It was not the result of a mere expansion or ex- 
tension of this colony in the usual process of colonization. It 
was a settlement formed entirely from without, without the inter- 
vention of this colony at all, on a portion of the territory of this 
vast continental island, which was not supposed at the time to be 
comprehended within its limits. Sir Richard Bourke, however, 
could not remain an unconcerned spectator of these wholesale 
proceedings in the immediate vicinity of his government. The 
prerogative of the Crown had been invaded by the Van Dieman's 
Land adventurers at Port Phillip, who had sought to establish a 



372 



PHILLIP SLANT), 



principle, m regard to the purchase of land from the Aborigines^ 
which could not be tolerated within the limits of the empire. 
Finding, therefore, on looking into the matter carefully, that the 
territory of Port Phillip was within the limits of his government, 
as originally laid down in the commission of Governor Phillip — 
whose jurisdiction was to extend from Cape York to the South 
Cape of Van Dieman's Laud — he asserted his right to govern it, 
so as at least to put a stop to these unwarrantable invasions of 
the Royal prerogative. Sir Richard Bourke had full credit given 
him at Downing Street for these patriotic efforts, as they were 
justly regarded at home, in defence of the rights of the Crown as 
a trustee for the nation in regard to the territory of Port Phillip ; 
his right to govern that territory pro tempore was fully recog- 
nised ; the purchases from the black natives were disallowed, and 
the settlement was formally taken possession of as a dependency 
of the colony of New South Wales, for the time being, towards 
the close of the year 1836. I say for the time being; for it seems 
to have suggested itself to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
probably on the representation of Sir Richard Bourke, that it 
was altogether incongruous and absurd that a comparatively 
numerous colonial population should grow up at the distance of 
six or eight hundred miles from the seat of their Local Govern- 
ment ; and therefore the accounts of the Ordinary Revenue and 
Expenditure, as well as those of the Land Revenue and Expen- 
diture of Port Phillip, were ordered to be kept distinct from 
those of New South Wales Proper from the first. : This, T main- 
tain, was a virtual admission, on the part of the Secretary <rf 
State, that the Separation of the Port Phillip district from this 
colony was a measure of obvious and absolute necessity, to be 
carried into effect as soon as the district should be sufficiently 
advanced to stand alone, and to maintain a government of its 
own independently of that of New South Wales. From the 
period at which the settlement of Port Phillip was thus taken 
possession of by the Government of this colony, that is towards 
the close of 1836, its rapid advancement as a colonial dependency 
lias been altogether unparalleled in the history of British colo- 
nization. Numerous free immigrants, including no ordinary 
proportion of men -of superior education and intelligence, men -of 
birth, wealth, and talent, in every department, whether of science 
or of art- — allured by the favourable accounts of it published at 
home — have landed in its territory from the mother-country. 
Many respectable proprietors, with large flocks and herds, Jiave 
settled in it from Van Dieman's Land ; and many others have 
found their way to it, with their numerous flocks and herds also, 
from this part of the territory. Land and town allotments have 
been purchased to an unprecedented extent, if estimated by tire 
amount of purchase-money actually realized by the Government, 
and property to a vast amount has been created, not only in agri- 
uaitaral and pastoral stock, but in buildings and other permanent 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



373 



improvements ; while, I am confident, there is no instance in the 
whole history of colonization in which the exports and imports, 
the revenue and expenditure of so young a colony, have reached 
to anything like the amount of those of Port Phillip up to the 
present date ; especially taking into consideration the highly 
gratifying, the singularly remarkable, the unprecedented fact, 
that the settlement of Port Phillip has not only never cost the 
mother-country a single farthing, but has actually relieved that 
country, without one farthing of expense to it, of a large amount 
of its semi-pauper population. 

The population of the Port Phillip District amounts at present 
to at least 25,000. It has been estimated indeed as high even as 
30,000 ; but I prefer stating it at the lower amount, which is 
undisputed. Its Ordinary Revenue for the year 1843 was 
£71,831, 10s. 8d., while its entire Expenditure for that year did 
not exceed £54,352, leaving a balance of upwards of £17,000 to 
the 'credit of Port Phillip. Its Imports for that year were 
£18-3,321, while its Exports amounted to not less than £277,672, 
leaving a balance in favour of Port Phillip of upwards of £94,000, 
The export of wool alone for last year amoimted to 4,400,540 lbs< 
The number of horses in the district is given at 5000, that of 
horned cattle at 140,000, and that of sheep at 2,000,000. The 
number of vessels entered inwards was 177, and their register- 
tonnage 25,322 tons, and the number outwards 173, with a regis- 
ter-tonnage of 23,311 tons. In short, there is no other instance 
in the whole history of colonization of such an amount of popula- 
tion, and of all the elements of national prosperity and greatness 
having been created, so to speak, in any one locality in so short 
a period. It seems, indeed, as if it had sprung into existence 
instantaneously, like the splendid cities of Oriental fable, at the 
touch of some mighty magician's wand. 

Now, it is perfectly natural, and accordant with the feelings 
of mankind universally, for a community in such a state of ad- 
vancement as that of Port Phillip, to wish for a Local Govern- 
ment of its own. Such a desire, indeed, was the necessary result 
of the peculiar origin of the settlement of Port Phillip, as having 
been originally formed by adventurers from Van Dieman's Land, 
and not from this colony. Besides, the connexion of that settle- 
ment with this colony, as I have already hinted, was an unfore- 
seen accident, as far as its original founders were concerned. 
Had their El Dorado been only situated to the westward instead 
of the eastward of the province of South Australia, such a con- 
nexion would have been altogether out of the question. As it 
was, they never contemplated the possibility of it from the first, 
and it arose entirely, I repeat it, from the mere accident of that 
part of the territory having been included in the original commis- 
sion of Governor Phillip, and from the necessity which had. arisen 
during the administration of Sir Richard Bourke to provide an 
effectual remedy for the invasion of the Royal prerogative on 



374 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



that part of the coast. It would be absurd to suppose for one 
moment that in extending the jurisdiction of Governor Phillip 
from Cape Yorke to the South Cape of Van Dieman's Land, it 
was ever the intention of the Imperial Authorities to subject to 
the same Colonial Government whatever communities might in 
process of time be formed along that extensive coast line. The 
thing was done merely to secure the rights of British sovereignty; 
and I am confident Sir Richard Bourke had no other object in 
view in the measures he suggested for the extension of his own 
jurisdiction as Governor of this colony over the district of Port 
Phillip. 

The geographical position of the Port Phillip District, stretch- 
ing, as it does, for 500 or 600 miles along the Great Southern 
Ocean, as this part of the territory does along the Pacific, marks it 
out as fitted by nature for a separate colony ; and the vast distance 
at which it lies from the present colonial capital — from 600 to 800 
miles — precludes the possibility of its ever being well or satis- 
factorily governed as a mere dependency of New South Wales. 
The following apposite remarks on this subject, which I shall 
take the liberty of quoting, are from the pen of Martin Van Bu- 
ren, late President of the United States. They were written in 
answer to an invitation to attend a public meeting for some poli- 
tical purpose, to be held in the State of Georgia, in the course of 
last year : — " No distinct people deprived of a Local Legislature 
can be well governed. The nature of man must be changed be- 
fore any Legislative Assembly, wherever convened, or however 
carefully selected, will be found to legislate for a separate and 
distinct people, of whose particular wants they must to some ex- 
tent at least be ignorant, and whose interests may not always cor- 
respond with their own, as wisely, or as usefully, as when passing 
laws which are to operate directly and equally upon themselves, 
and upon those amongst whom they live. Acting upon this prin- 
ciple, of the entire soundness of which there can be no doubt, the 
government of the United States have always been careful to 
confer upon their territorial districts, when numbering in popu- 
lation only a few thousands, the right to territorial legislatures 
chosen by themselves, from among themselves, and subject to the 
same responsibilities to their constituents, as are the representa- 
tives of the Federal and State governments." 

To allege that a community of upwards of 25,000 souls, like 
that of Port Phillip, is incapable of self-government, as a sepa- 
rate and distinct Colony, is in the highest degree absurd. How 
many such Colonies are there not in the empire of a somewhat 
similar, and indeed of a much smaller population, and having ter- 
ritories of not one-tenth the size of that of Port Phillip ? In 
British North America, where the Colonies generally are of old 
standing, and greatly more populous, the only Colony of which 
the population can still be compared with that of Port Phillip, is 
that of Prince Edward's Island, containing a population of 33,000, 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



375 



having a Legislative Assembly and Council, and a Governor, 
(passing rich, I doubt not, in the estimation of the Colonists) at 
£1000 a-year. In the West Indies there is the separate and dis- 
tinct Colony of 

Tobago, with a population of only 13,200 souls, a Representa- 
tive Assembly, and a Lieutenant-Governor, at £1300 a-year. 

Grenada, also, with a population of 21,000, has a Representa- 
tive Assembly, and a Lieutenant-Governor, at the same salary. 

St. Vincent, with a population of 26,200, has the same form of 
government, and its Lieutenant-Governor has precisely the same 
salary. 

St. Lucia, population 15,000 ; form of Government, Legislative 
Council, and Lieutenant-Governor, with £150f) per annum. 

Dominica, population 18,660 ; form of Government, Represen- 
tative Assembly, and Lieutenant-Governor, at £1300 a-year. 

St. Christopher's, "population 23,133 ; same popular form of 
Government, with a Lieutenant-Governor, at £i 350 per annum. 

Montserrat, population 7000 ; same form of Government, and 
Lieutenant-Governor, at £200 a-year. 

Nevis, population 10.000 ; Council and Assembly, and Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, at £800 a-year. 

Tortola, and the Virgin Isles, population 7730 ; same form of 
Government, and Lieutenant-Governor, at £800 a-year. 

New Providence and Bahamas, population 20.000 ; same 
form of Government, and Lieutenant-Governor, at £1200 a-year. 

Bermudas, population 8500 ; same form of Government, and 
Lieutenant-Governor, £2800 — the larger salary in this case be- 
ing given on account of the Bermudas being an important naval 
station, having an arsenal and other warlike appendages, not at 
all necessary in a mere colony. 

But to come somewhat nearer home, there is the separate and 
distinct Colony of South Australia, with a population of only 
16,000, a Legislative Council, and a Governor-General (for he 
is no subordinate or mere Superintendent) at £800 a-year. 

Swan River, with a population considerably under 5000 souls, 
has, notwithstanding, the character of a separate and distinct Co- 
lonv, and its Governor, not (Lieutenant-Governor) has a_ salarv 
^^m'h^,t: \ > ,&in9ifj - < - ibdJ oi a9i*Hfdi8floq8d3 emus 

Nay, the mere rock of Heligoland is reckoned as one of the 
separate and distinct colonies of the British empire, although its 
population is only 2200 souls, while its Governor has only £500 
a-year. ' . rxi -i t vnolcD Tymi^lb baB osm 

Neither ought it to be forgotten, in such an enumeration of 
separate and distinct colonies having a still smaller population 
than Port Phillip, that the colony of Van Bieman's Land had 
only 12,643 inhabitants, of whom nearly one-half were convicts, 
in the year 1825, when it was finally disjoined from New South 
Wales, and placed under a government of its own. Van Die- 
man's Land is doubtless separated from this colony by salt water ; 



376 



PHILLIPSLA3TD. 



but it is actually nearer Sydney by sea than Port Phillip, and 
forms a sort of half-way house for steamboats plying between 
Sydney and Melbourne. 

It is preposterous, therefore, it is absurd in the highest degree, 
to allege that Port Phillip is not in every respect as fit for a se- 
parate and distinct government as any one of the numerous co- 
lonies I have enumerated. Besides, there is something absolute- 
ly ridiculous in the attempt to subject so extensive a colonial ter- 
ritory as that of Port Phillip to a Local Government, (if such a 
phrase can be used with propriety in such a case) having its head- 
quarters six or eight hundred miles distant. The coast-line of 
the whole thirteen American Colonies that proclaimed their in- 
dependence in the year 1776, was only 840 geographical miles 
altogether ; but the coast-line of this one colony, from the boun- 
dary of South Australia to Wide Bay, is not less than 1250 geo- 
graphical miles. Again, the whole superficial extent of not fewer 
than eight of these American Colonies, now forming nine of the 
United States, and containing in the year 1839 a population of 
5,319.874 souls — I mean the colonies of New Hampshire, Mas- 
sachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania and Delaware — I say the superficial extent of these 
eight colonies, now nine sovereign and independent States, was 
only 136,609 square miles ; but the district of Port Phillip alone 
has an extent of i 39,500 square miles ; and yet it is proposed to 
continue this vast extent of territory as a mere appendage to a 
colony having its capital six or eight hundred miles distant ! Can 
anything be more preposterous, more absurd 3 This great and 
most inconvenient distance from the seat of government is pro- 
ductive of precisely the same evil consequences on the small scale, 
that our own vast distance from Downing Street produces on the 
large scale- — the real interests of the distant locality are either 
not ascertained by the supreme authority, or not attended to : 
delays, absolutely ruinous to the parries concerned, necessarily 
intervene before any particular case or question referred for de- 
cision to that authority can be decided on ; the uncertainty that 
attends such references, arising from the absolute ignorance that 
unavoidably prevails at head- quarters in regard to the peculiar 
circumstances of such cases, indisposes people to the trouble and 
expense and annoyance of making such references at all, and 
abuses are thus allowed to grow up till they become absolutely 
intolerable. The affections of the colonists are in the meantime 
gradually alienated from the power that they think oppresses 
them, and they brood over their grievances in silent and sullen 
indignation. * nursing their wrath," as the poet says, ;£ to keep it 
warm," for the first convenient opportunity of display. 

If it should be alleged, however, that these are all rather imagi- 
nary than real grievances, I trust I shall be able to satisfy the 
most fastidious in regard to the reality of Port Phillip grievances — 
I mean grievances that may be weighed and measured by pounds^ 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



377 



shillings, and pence. It appears, then, from the Returns I moved 
for last Session, that the whole revenue of the district of Port 
Phillip, exclusive of the land revenue, for the first six years of 
its existence as a settlement under the government of this colony, 
was £222,984:, Os. 7d., while the whole expenditure for that pe- 
riod was £254,985, Os. 6d., exhibiting a balance against the dis- 
trict of £32,000, 19s. lid. But when the sum of £29,464, 4s. 
5Jd., expended for the Aborigines — an expenditure which ought 
in common justice to be borne entirely upon the land revenue — 
is deducted from this amount, the balance against the district, up 
to the close of the year 1842, will not exceed £2536, 15s. 5Jd. 
But the ordinary revenue of Port Phillip for the year 1843 hav- 
ing amounted to £71,831, 10s. 8d., while the whole expenditure 
amounted to not more than £54,352— there was a clear balance 
in favour of the district, on the 1st of January last, to the amount 
of £14,942, I5s. 5^d. This amount, therefore, £14,942, 15s. 5^0. 
was due to Port Phillip from the Public Treasury of this colony, 
on the current account of the Revenue and Expenditure of the 
district from the period of its first settlement to the 1st of Janu- 
ary last : and I have no doubt whatever, that the amount thus 
due to Port Phillip will be augmented by not less than from 
£15,000 to £20,000 before the close of the present year. No 
wonder then, that, in such circumstances — seeing so much of the 
revenue that is raised in the district expended out of it — the 
people of Port Phillip should be earnestly desirous of separation 
from this colony. It is a dowiiright public robbery we are per- 
petrating upon them ; and the sooner, therefore, they ca.n " cut 
and run" from us, the better will it be for them in every sense of 
the word. But if it is a grievance absolutely intolerable for any 
colonial community struggling into existence, like that of Port 
Phillip, under a system of paternal neglect, to have from £15,000 
to £20,000 a-year of its ordinary revenue abstracted in this semi- 
felonious manner, for 1 the maintenance of an unnecessarily ex- 
travagant system of government in another colonial community 
six or eight hundred miles off, that grievance will appear but a 
mere trifle when compared with another and still greater griev- 
ance — a grievance of enormous magnitude,, and such as I have 
no hesitation in saying the inhabitants of Port Phillip ought not 
to submit to on any account. During the six years ending on the 
31st December 1842, there was derived from the sale of land and 
town-allotments in the district of Port Phillip, a revenue of not 
less than £393,911, lis. Id. ; and this amount has been still fur- 
ther increased, by the sales effected during the past year, to 
£395,805, 0s. 3d., whereas the whole amount expended for immi^ 
gration into Port Phillip, up to the 31st December last, was only 
£204,446, 5s. O^-d., leaving a balance in favour of Port Phillip, 
and against this Middle District, to the enormous amount of 
£191,358, 15s. 2W. ! Yes ! a hundred and ninety-one thousand 
three hundred and fifty-eight pounds, fifteen shillings and two- 



378 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



pence halfpenny, owing at this moment to Port Phillip by the 
colony of New South Wales under the head of Land-Revenue 
alone ! Talk of Justice to Ireland ! Had Ireland ever such 
monstrous injustice to complain of as this ? To think of so vast 
an amount abstracted from the available revenues of an infant 
settlement — a settlement that never cost either the mother- 
country or this colony one farthing — no wonder, I say, that the 
fact of so monstrous a grievance staring them perpetually in the 
face, should have united the inhabitants of Port Phillip as one 
man in demanding an entire and immediate separation from this 
colony ! What a splendid colony would not Port Phillip have 
been by this time, if it had only had the whole of this enormous 
amount judiciously expended upon itself during the Inst seven 
years, in promoting improvement in the district in every form 
and in every direction — in the construction of roads and bridges 
and public buildings, in the establishment of schools and colleges, 
and in effecting a greatly increased immigration from Great Bri- 
tain ! Why, in all these most important particulars, the whole 
face of the district of Port Phillip would have been prodigiously 
changed for the better from what it is now. There never, there- 
fore, could be a more rational and proper, as there has never cer- 
tainly been a more unanimous or more earnest desire for any 
political advantage on the part of any body of petitioners, than 
there is on the part of the whole of the inhabitants of the Port 
Phillip District, for immediate and entire separation. 

I confess, indeed, I do not sympathize with the inhabitants of 
that district in their expressions of alleged anxiety to cut their con- 
nexion with us, because, forsooth, we were formerly a convict co- 
lony. This would have been a very good ad captandum argument 
with the House of Commons or the House of Lords ; who, I dare 
say, would have given the Port Phillippians entire credit for their 
delicacy and propriety of feeling, in wishing for separation from 
this Colony on such grounds as these. But, honestly and sin- 
cerely desirous as I am that they may succeed in effecting their 
great object, I must say, in justice to the land I live in, that there 
are just as honest, as able, and as patriotic men here as there are 
there. If the Port Phillip advocates for separation had merely 
alleged, that in consequence of the penal character of this Co- 
lony from its first settlement, it was subjected to the enormous 
charge of 12s. a-head upon every man, woman, and child in the 
Colony, for the maintenance and support of police and gaols 
alone, and that Port Phillip, having been a free settlement from 
the first, with but few and insignificant exceptions, it was unrea- 
sonable and unjust that so large a portion of the Revenue de- 
rived from that district should be expended for any such purpose, 
there would have been a strong and valid argument for separa- 
tion, which unfortunately no inhabitant of this Colony could dis- 
pute. But to talk of moral contamination from the continuance 
of the connexion with us is, I acknowledge, pre-eminently absurd; 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



379 



for the danger of contamination in Port Phillip from the neigh- 
bourhood of this Colony will be precisely the same after separa- 
tion that it is now. There are so many good reasons, however, 
for separation, that we can easily afford to give up this very in- 
different one. 

But all this may be true, I shall probably be told by gentle- 
men opposite — I do not mean on the other side of this House, (for 
I presume the Government are not committed in the matter) but 
on the other side of this question — but it is not the policy of the 
Imperial Authorities at present to grant such a measure as I 
propose. I shall be told, that the last part of speech in the Co- 
lonial policy of Great Britain, as well as in her general grammar, 
is conjunction, and not interjection or separation ; and I shall be 
told to look to the cases of Canada and of British Guiana, as il- 
lustrations of the fact. These cases, however, are easily explain- 
ed in perfect accordance with the admission of the Port Phillip 
demand for separation. For what was the grand and openly 
avowed object of the recent union of the Colonies of Upper and 
Lower Canada ? Why, it was simply to swamp the foreign and 
French population of the latter Colony, and to perpetuate Bri- 
tish connexion with both. But where, I ask, is there any foreign 
or French population to be swamped here ? Where is there 
anything to endanger British connexion in Port Phillip, in the 
event of an immediate and entire separation of that province 
from this Colony ? I admit that there will be some danger to the 
principle of British connexion there in the event of this unnatural 
union being maintained much longer, in direct opposition to the 
unanimous wishes of the people. But there was another reason 
for the union of the Canadas, that has just as little to do with the 
case in question. Upper Canada had no Port of Entry from the 
Atlantic, and it was very difficult, if not impracticable, in such 
circumstances, to adjust the Custom House accounts of the two 
Colonies on the separate system. But there is no difficulty of 
this kind here. The province of Port Phillip is bounded by the 
Great Southern Ocean along its whole extent, as this colony is by 
the Pacific. They have both the best possible natural bounda- 
ries along the whole line of division, and while we have our 
splendid harbour of Port Jackson as our principal port, they 
have the magnificent basin of Port Phillip, admirably adapted 
for being the great centre-point of the trade and commerce of 
the entire province. And then as to the union of the two, or rather 
the three Colonies of Demerara, Berbice and Essequibo, now 
united into the single Colony of British Guiana, containing a po- 
pulation of about a hundred thousand souls, white and black, the 
whole coast-line of that Colony is only 180 miles altogether, that 
is considerably less than the distance between Sydney and Two- 
fold Bay, and the two capitals of the late Colonies of Demerara 
and Berbice, situated respectively on the rivers of these names, 
were only ninety miles apart. It would have been perfectly ab- 



380 



PHILLIP SL AND . 



surd to have kept up separate establishments for two such petty 
Colonies so near each other, and the recent union of these Colo- 
nies, therefore, forms no case at all against the separation of the 
vast and distant territory of Port Phillip from this Colony. 

I shall now show, as I proposed to do in the outset, that the gra- 
dual separation of such vast and unmanageable Colonies as this has 
become since the formation of the settlement of Port Phillip, into 
two more manageable portions, has been the practice of Great 
Britain in the system of colonization all along. We are told by 
the American annalist, Dr. Holmes, that in the year 1606 — 

ff Several gentlemen petitioned King James I. to grant them a 
patent for the settling of two plantations on the main coasts of 
America. The king, accordingly, by a patent dated the 10th 
April, divided that portion of North America, which stretches 
from the 34th to the 45th degree of latitude, into two districts, near- 
ly equal. The southern, called the First Colony, he granted to 
the London Company ; the northern, called the Second Colony, 
he granted to the Plymouth Company." 

The territory embraced in the patents of these two Companies 
extended over eleven degrees of latitude, and presented a coast- 
line of 660 geographical miles : but as settlements were succes- 
sively formed along this extensive coast-line, it was found abso- 
lutely necessary from time to time to provide these settlements 
with separate and distinct governments ; insomuch, that the ter- 
ritory of the First Colony, or South Virginia, as it was originally 
called, was successively broken up into the five separate and dis- 
tinct colonies of Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and 
Pennsylvania ; while that of the Second Colony, or North Virgi- 
nia, as it was then styled, was in like manner successively broken 
up into the separate and distinct colonies of New Jersey, New 
York, the colonies of New England, and those of New Brunswick 
and Nova Scotia — eight hi all. These successive acts of separa- 
tion were accomplished sometimes in one way and sometimes in 
another ; sometimes by fair means, and sometimes by foul. It 
would be tedious and unprofitable to enter into a detail of such 
proceedings ; but it may not be uninteresting to allude to one or 
two of the more important steps in the process, from their evi- 
dent bearing on the present question — more especially as they 
establish the fact, that King James' patent to the two Companies 
was regarded in later times exactly as the patent to Governor 
Phillip, extending his jurisdiction from Cape Yorke to the South 
Cape of Van Dieman's Land — that is, merely as an assertion of 
the right of sovereignty over that territory ; it being understood, 
and taken for granted on all hands, that when separate and dis- 
tinct communities should, in process of time, be formed along 
that extensive coast-line, they should, in some way or other, be 
provided with separate and distinct governments. 

The island of Newfoundland, was afterwards granted for the 
purposes of colonization, to Lord Baltimore by King Charles I. 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



381 



We are told, however, by the American annalist, under the year 
163', that " Neither the soil, nor the climate, of the inhospitable 
island of Newfoundland answering the expectations of Lord Bal- 
timore, that worthy nobleman, having heard much of the fertility 
and other advantages of Virginia, now visited that colony. Ob- 
serving that though the Virginians had established trading-houses 
in some of the islands towards the source of the bay of Chesapeak, 
they had formed no settlements to the northward of the river 
Potowmae. he determined to procure a grant of territory in that 
happier climate. Charles I. readily complied with his solicita- 
tions : bat before the patent could be finally adjusted, and pass 
the seals, this eminent statesman died." And again, under the 
year 1632 — ff The patent designed for George Calvert.. Lord Bal- 
timore, was, on his decease, filled up to his son Ceciiius Calvert, 
Lord Baltimore. When King Charles signed the patent, he gave 
to the new province the name of Maryland, in honour of his 
Queen Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry the Great, King of 
France. Lord Baltimore held it of the Crown of England, pay- 
ing yearly, for ever, two Indian arrows. This province was ori- 
ginally included in the patent of the South Virginia, Company." 
Now here follows the present Port Phillip case, almost word for 
word, in the case of the great and old-established convict-colony 
of Virginia versus the new settlement of Maryland, which occurred 
more than two hundred years ago. ft The grant to Lord Balti- 
more gave umbrage to the planters of Virginia. They, there- 
fore, presented a petition to Charles I., remonstrating against 
' some grants of a great portion of the lands of that colony, so 
near their habitations, as will give a general disheartening to 
them, if they be divided into several governments, and a bar to 
their long accustomed trade/ The Privy Council, to which the 
King referred the petition, having heard what was alleged en 
each side, thought ht to leave Lord Baltimore to his patent, and 
the complainants to the course of law ; but gave orders for such 
an intercourse and conduct, as should prevent a war with the na- 
tives, and further disagreement among themselves. * ' : - * This 
transaction offers the tlrd example, in colonial history, of the dismem- 
hermcht of an ancient colony, by ilte formation of a new province with 
separate and equal rights." There were differences of opinion in 
regard to the propriety, the legality, and the probable effects of 
this transaction among the learned lawyers and historians of the 
period, as well as among those of succeeding times, just as there 
are likely to be in regard to the very similar transaction which 
it is the object of this motion to recommend — I mean the separa- 
tion of Port Phillip from New South Wales. " Chalmers," says 
the annalist, "seems to doubt the right of the grant for two se- 
parate governments, and Beverley pronounces tiie separation in- 
jurious to both ; Bozman agrees with Burk, that the grant vVas 
legal, and the effect salutary/' I have no hesitation in giving it 
as my private opinion that both Bozman and Burk were very 
sensible men. 



382 



PHILLIP SLANT) . 



The grant to Lord Baltimore of the province of Maryland took 
a slice of not less than 14,000 square miles off the older colony of 
Virginia, to the northward ; but in the year 1665, Charles II. took 
to the extent of two degrees of latitude off the same colony to the 
southward, to which he added other three degrees of coast farther 
south. The fact is thus related by the American annalist above 
quoted : " The immense territory lying southward of Virginia, al- 
though granted to Sir Robert Heath, by Charles I., remained un- 
settled. Edward, Earl of Clarendon, and several associates, ap- 
prised of the excellent soil of that country, formed a project for 
planting a colony there. On application for a charter, Charles II. 
granted them all the lands lying between the 31st and 36th degrees 
of north latitude, and constituted them absolute lords and proprie- 
tors of that tract of country, reserving to himself and his succes- 
sors the sovereign dominion. The province thus 
created was called Carolina." In the year 1729, however, this 
Proprietary Government was dissolved, and the province divided 
by Act of Parliament into two distinct governments, called North 
Carolina and South Carolina. It is not quite clear what the popu- 
lation of the two provinces was when this separation was effected ; 
but, six years before, that of South Carolina consisted of only 
14,000 whites and 18,000 negroes and Indians, or 32,000 in all. 
Now, if the British Parliament deemed it absolutely necessary 
that North and South Carolina should be separated from each 
other, and constituted distinct and independent colonies, in 1729, 
there must surely be a far stronger necessity now for the separa- 
tion of Port Phillip from New South Wales ; the District of 
Port Phillip being nearly twice the size of both North and South 
Carolina together, and the distance between Sydney and Mel- 
bourne being four times the distance between the capitals of 
these two American provinces. So lately, however, as the year 
1732, it is remarked by the American annalist, that "a great 
part of the chartered limits of Carolina still remained unsettled. 
The vacant lands lay between the river3 Alatamaha and Savan- 
nah, on the south side of the colony, next to Florida, and it was 
therefore highly interesting to Great Britain to occupy and plant 
this territory, lest either the Spaniards from Florida, or the 
French on the Mississippi, should seize and possess it. And how 
was this accomplished ? Why, by cutting a large slice off the 
colony of South Carolina and forming a separate and distinct 
colony and government under the name of Georgia ; the whole 
three colonies (now States) of North and South Carolina and 
Georgia being only a trifle larger than the District of Port Phil- 
lip. If, therefore, it was found absolutely necessary, in order to 
secure to the American colonists the inestimable benefits of Local 
Government, and such Local Government as they might have 
under their own control, to carry into effect the separation pro- 
cess again and again, till the two colonies of King James I. were 
separated into not fewer than thirteen, so long ago as in the reign 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



383 



of George II., there must, a fortiori, be a much stronger neces- 
sity for the separation of the Port Phillip territory from this 
colony, under all the circumstances I have detailed. 

The ideas of the Americans of the present day, on the subject 
of Local Government, may be ascertained from the limits they 
have assigned during the last fifty years to the New States of 
their Union. These are generally of the extent of 40,000 square 
miles each, or as near that extent as any remarkable natural 
boundary that can be rendered available will allow. That is, 
they are each a square of 200 miles each side, the chief town be- 
ing as nearly as possible in the centre of the State, or within 1 00 
miles of every man's door. By such an arrangement every in- 
dividual in the State can bring his personal influence of every 
kind to bear upon the Local Government with perfect facility, 
and if he has a grievance to complain of, he can have it inquired 
into and redressed at once. Now let us contrast, for one 
moment, our own colonial system with this. Why, the district 
of Port Phillip alone contains a larger territory than would be 
sufficient to form not fewer than three of these American States ; 
and as it is, notwithstanding, only a mere appendage or make- 
weight of another and a much larger and distant colony, its whole 
inhabitants, rich and poor, great and small, are virtually pre- 
cluded from having a direct voice in their own Local Legislature, 
or any efficient control whatever over their own Local Govern- 
ment. There is Mr. Henty, for instance, the oldest resident, the 
largest proprietor, a settler and a merchant also, at Portland 
Bay ; why, I would ask, is that gentleman not a member of this 
House, as he would unquestionably be of such a House at Mel- 
bourne, rather than myself or any other of the present Port 
Phillip members \ I shall perhaps be told, by gentlemen on the 
other side of the question, that there is nothing to prevent him. 
And is the distance of 800 miles from Sydney nothing \ Is the 
removal of the eye of a master from the superintendence of his 
private concerns lbr four or five months every year — is this 
nothing % Is the expense of a yearly journey of 800 miles to and 
from Sydney, and a residence of four or five months together 
every year at such a distance from home, in so expensive a place 
as Sydney, where moreover he has nothing earthly to do but to 
look after the interests of his constituents — is all this nothing, to 
prevent a prudent man from offering himself as a member for 
Port Phillip ? Three of the six original members for that dis- 
trict were men chosen by the inhabitants from among themselves 
— men who, notwithstanding all the inconveniences I have men- 
tioned, resolved to devote themselves to the service and welfare 
of their adopted country. But how many are there of this class 
now ? Why, not a solitary one ? They all found the inconveni- 
ence, the hardships, and the expense I have mentioned, too great 
for their patriotism, and they all successively threw up their 
thankless office, and left their constituents to find representatives 



384 



PHILLIP SL AND. 



as they could, out of the district altogether, representatives resid- 
ing six or eight hundred miles from it ! In short, the idea of vir- 
tual representation, such as the entire representation of Port 
Phillip is at present — I mean representation by other than men 
chosen from among the people themselves— is not only a notorious 
absurdity, but a positive outrage upon the common sense of man- 
kind. As a resident in Sydney, I admit that I cannot possibly 
be a fit and proper person to represent the inhabitants of Port 
Phillip, any more than any other of the five Sydney members for 
that district ; — and if justice were only done to Port Phillip in 
this most important respect, 1 for one should be most willing to 
walk out of this Council, without the slightest desire ever to re- 
turn to it again. It was the strong impression made on my own 
mind, in regard to the benefits and blessings derivable from local 
government, in the course of a tour I made through eleven of the 
old colonies of America in the year 1840, and the strong expres- 
sion I happened to give of my opinion on the subject in the 
course of a visit to Port Phillip in the year 1841, before the Act 
of Parliament constituting this Council was passed at home, that 
led to my appointment as a Member of this House. I am of the 
same opinion on the subject now as I was then, and I have no 
hesitation in declaring it as my belief and conviction, that the 
welfare and advancement of the Port Phillip section of this colony 
will be impeded and retarded to an incalculable degree, " aye and 
until" it shall be entirely disjoined from N. S. Wales, and erected 
into a separate and independent colony. 

It may not be politic, perhaps, to anticipate objections to the 
measure under consideration ; but I shall run the risk of doing so 
beforehand, in reference to one or two that have been suggested, 
merely to demonstrate their utter futility, and to save hon. mem- 
bers the trouble of urging them. It lias been suggested, therefore, 
that the separation of Port Phillip from New South Wales would 
be a suicidal measure, calculated in no small degree to eclipse the 
honour and glory of this colony, and to lessen its importance, not 
only in its own esteem, but in that of the civilized world. In short, 
justice to Port Phillip will be anything but elevation and distinc- 
tion to New South Wales. Now, I admit all this most willingly. 
I admit that it will be taking a feather out of our Colonial cap to 
deprive us of the lordship of that noble dependency. And if New 
South Wales were the only party in the case, I should regard 
such an argument as sufficient for the decision of this question. 
But what are the honour and glory of New South Wales to the 
rights of twenty-five thousand British subjects settled on a distant 
portion of this vast continental island, and deserving of a sepa- 
rate and independent colonial government of their own, for the 
reasons 1 have enumerated, more than any settlement that has 
ever been planted under the British Crown ? Mat justitia, is the 
first maxim of colonial policy ; and we are entitled to insist upon 
Iiaving that maxim carried out, even though we should have to 



TELE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



385 



add, not only ruat Nova Cambria, but mat caelum. But 1 should be 
ashamed of my adopted country, if I supposed that it were neces- 
sary, either for its existence, its good government, or its real ho- 
nour or advantage, to perpetuate an act of injustice to any other 
colony or community on this continent. I would say to Port 
Phillip, as my Uncle Toby said to the fly that had been buzzing 
about his ear for an hour before, and which he caught between 
his finger and thumb, just as this great colony might catch Port 
Phillip, and let out at the open window, " Go, poor creature ; 
there is room in this wide world for me and thee." Yes, surely 
there is " ample room and verge enough" on the coast of this 
vast continental island for two such splendid colonies as N. S. 
Wales and Port Phillip are both evidently destined to become, 
to advance and prosper. 

It will perhaps be urged, however, that the separation of Port 
Phillip from N. S. Wales will tend materially to lessen the means 
of influence which this colony now possesses at home, and the pro- 
bability of its obtaining such concessions as are indispensably ne- 
cessary from the despotic authority to which we are there subject. 
My own opinion on this subject is exactly the reverse. The conces- 
sions^ — I mean in the article of self-government, and of entire con- 
trol over our own revenue and expenditure — which it is of conse- 
quence for this colony to procure from British despotism, are com- 
mon to us with Port Phillip, with every colony on this continent ; 
and it will only be when a number of separate and independent 
colonies shall make common cause in demanding these concessions 
that we can hope to obtain them. Had the thirteen colonies of 
America been united under one great colonial government, when 
the revolutionary contest broke out, it would have been compara- 
tively easy for Great Britain to have bought over or paralyzed that 
government and enslaved the people. {Hear ! Hear! from the 
Treasury Benches.) I presume I am to understand from this 
strong expression of feeling, that the honourable members who 
are calling out Hear ! Hear ! are of opinion that the cause of the 
Americans w r as not a just cause ; that the right of the case was not 
onjheir side ; and that it would have been a very fortunate thing 
indeed if Great Britain had succeeded in putting them down. 
(Great sensation.) Now 1 have no hesitation in expressing it as 
my fixed opinion that the Americans were entirely in the right 
on that faiDous occasion, and that justice was altogether on their 
side. And if ever Great Britain, or any other mother-country in 
Europe, shall ever attempt to perpetrate the same injustice and 
oppression on remote colonies, I trust that she will meet with 
the same spirit of determined resistance, and that the people who 
are so unjustly dealt with and oppressed will achieve their free- 
dom and independence with the same signal success. (Great 
cheering.) The thirteen-fold cord, I say, was not so easily broken ; 
and Great Britain, having gained some experience by the fact, 
will be ready to grant us everything we can reasonably ask, when 
she finds a similar union for the common defence among the se- 
2 B 



386 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



parate and independent colonies of this continent — she will be 
ready to grant us anything, rather than hazard the repetition of 
a similar tragedy and similar disgrace. 

There is another, and I understand, rather a favourite argument 
against separation in certain quarters. The Port Phillip people, 
we are told, are neither sufficiently numerous, nor sufficiently in- 
telligent to be entrusted with self-government ! — we can manage 
their affairs much better for them here in Sydney than they can 
themselves on the spot. Such an argument, however, if it deserves 
the name, is an outrage upon the common sense of mankind ; and 
either the man who uses it, or the man for whom it can be used 
with any degree of propriety, must, in my opinion, be a fit and 
proper person for the establishment at Tarban Creek.* To tell 
any man that he is unfit to have the management of his own af- 
fairs is to tell him totidem verbis, that he is either a fool or a mad- 
man ; — and to tell twenty-five thousand British subjects in any 
colony of the British empire that they are unfit to have the man- 
agement of their own affairs — that they will be far better man- 
aged for them, by other people some eight hundred miles off — 
is such a manifest absurdity, that it only requires to be mentioned 
to excite universal ridicule. For my own part, I have such perfect 
confidence in the ability of men of our Anglo-Saxon race, and with 
the training we have all received at home, to govern themselves 
well and wisely, that I would most willingly invest with the am- 
plest powers of self-government that the condition of a colony im- 
plies, not only twenty-five thousand persons, in such circumstan- 
ces as those in which the colonists of Port Phillip are now placed, 
but five thousand. How different were the sentiments of the an- 
cient constitution-mongers of Greece — the Abbes Sieves, and the 
Jeremy Benthams of the Peloponnesian War period — from those 
of the sages of Downing Street and New South Wales ! One of 
these constitutions — proposed by its author as a model of perfec- 
tion for the famous Greek island of Utopia — restricted the maxi- 
mum number of citizens to five thousand, under the idea that a 
larger number could neither govern themselves wisely nor well. 
It may be charitable doubtless for the men of New South Wales 
not to subject the men of Port Phillip to the calamity of b&ng 

Lords of themselves, that heritage of wo." 

but I repeat it, it is anything but just, and that I imagine is the 
previous question in this case. 

But there is one reason more — the richest and rarest of them 
all — against the separation of Port Phillip from this colony. The 
erection of that district into a separate and independent colony 
would imply too great an expense ; it would be more than the 
district could bear ! And therefore, (mark how very logically 



* The Lunatic Asylum of New South Wales. 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



3*7 



the inference is drawn) after having first plundered it of 
£191,000 and upwards, of its Land Revenue, we are now going 
to plunder it of £15,000 a-year, or thereby, of its ordinary re- 
venue, by way of saving it the expense of having a government 
of its own ! Misum teneatis, amici ! Truly, this Middle District 
has been a real Savings' Bank for Port Phillip. We have ab- 
sorbed all their savings, as a Bank of Deposit ; and we have 
given them to understand pretty clearly that we are no Bank of 
Issue, as far as they are concerned. Independently of this argu- 
ment, however, the plea that the erection of Port Phillip into a 
separate and independent colony would imply a great additional 
expense, is the most futile imaginable. For I maintain, without 
fear of contradiction, that the present establishment might be 
transformed into that of a separate and independent colonial 
government without a farthing of additional expense : or, to be 
liberal, £2000 a-year additional would be amply sufficient to cover 
all the additional expenses which such a transformation would 
imply. 

In moving, therefore, that a humble Address be presented to 
her Majesty, praying for the separation of Port Phillip from this 
colony, I appeal to the §mm of justice of honourable members of 
this Council. The people of Port Phillip have a clear and indis- 
putable right to a separate and independent colonial govern- 
ment, and it is monstrous injustice to refuse them that boon a 
moment longer. I appeal to the sense of honour of honourable 
members. In the Petitions that have this day. as well as formerly, 
been presented to this House, the twenty-five thousand inhabit- 
ants of Port Phillip are bringing against the Government of this 
colony the grave and solemn charge of oppression and tyranny in 
appropriating their hard-earned money, to the enormous extent 
I have already mentioned, for anything but their benefit, and 
without their consent. Let us wash our hands, therefore, of this 
charge. Let us show them by our vote of this day that this 
Council is not to blame in the matter. I appeal to the self-in- 
terest of hon. members. The grand grievance of this colony 
— the grievance of grievances that has been so often complained 
of in this Council — is that all our colonial affairs are managed 
for us, and a large portion of our revenue appropriated, at 
Downing Street — 16,000 miles off — without our previous know- 
ledge, and without our consent. Now, how can we pretend to 
ask for the redress of this prodigious grievance, the discontinu- 
ance of this enormous wrong, if we are wilfully guilty of precisely 
the same conduct ourselves towards our own fellow-colonists at 
Port Phillip \ Let us first do justice, then, to Port Phillip, 
and we bhall have some title to ask for justice ourselves from 
Lord Stanley. Finally, I appeal to the prudence of honourable 
members. If it were ours either to grant or to withhold the 
boon sought, for by our fellow-colonists, we might take our stand 
on the negative, and maintain it against all opposition. But it is 



388 PHILLIPSLAXD. 

not in our power to withhold this boon, if our lord and master is 
Downing Street chooses to grant it in spite of our refusal. When 
the people of Van Dienmirs Land were petitioning loudly and 
long for separation from this colony, within my own recollection, 
one-and-twenty years ago, they never thought of petitioning either 
the Sydney government or the Sydney people on the subjeet. 
They took it for granted that we should oppose them, on the 
ground that power, however obtained, is always the last thing 
that those who have it will give up ; and therefore they peti- 
tioned the King in Council and the two Houses of Parliament at 
once. And although their population at the time was not above 
half the present amount of the population of Port Phillip—al- 
though their revenue, their exports and imports, their stock of all 
kinds, and their other resources, were but trifling in comparison 
with those of that district at the present moment, they petitioned 
successfully. And so, I have no doubt, will the people of Port 
Phillip also in the event of our refusing them, our countenance 
and co-operation this day. I venture to predict that they will 
never come to this Council again on a similar errand. They will 
only redouble their efforts at home, under the consciousness that 
amy dependence here is utterly hopeless, utterly vain — that there 
is no justice to be expected for Port Phillip from Botany Bay* 
And they will succeed at last in spite of us — to our mortification, 

tstfceur shame, hulls 9f{ slbzAfl &?n-r/ q->rTei'n r iih 

Mr. Robinson, member for Melbourne, in seconding the mo- 
tion, said, that after the full and able manner in which the subject 
had been gone into by the honourable and reverend movei\ he 
should not deem it necessary to detain the house by any lengthened 
observations. It must be borne in mind that the district which 
now sought to obtain its independence was not one of small import- 
ance, but one which contained a population of thirty thousand souls, 
and these too of as respectable a class as had ever existed in any 
colony. The increasing revenue of Port Phillip was a strong argu- 
ment in favour of separation : for the current, year exhibited an 
increase of above £30,000, and from the extreme distance of that 
portion of the territory, it was impossible that representatives 
could be chosen from among its own inhabitants : for although 
it was true, that during the last session three gentlemen of this 
description were members of that House, the expense and incon^ 
venience was greater than any could Toe expected to bear, and it 
could riot be expected that any future member could be obtained 
in a similar manner. (Hear, hear.) Another great difficulty, 

- which was created by the distance of Port Phillip from the seat 
of the Central Government, was the impossibility of procuring 
witnesses from thence to give evidence before the Committees of 
the House ; although the subjects under inquiry were frequently 
such as to affect most the interest of that community. During 
the present Session only one witness had been so examined, and 
it was scarcely necessary to point out the extreme inconvenien- 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



389 



ces likely to result from the absence of information. The trade 
of Melbourne was carried on in direct communication with Lon- 
don, and it, therefore, formed no parallel to the case of the Cana- 
das, in which case the commerce of the two provinces was min- 
gled. In this respect, indeed, its claims for separation were even 
greater than those formerly urged by Van Dieman's Land, 
{Hear, hear.) Another great grievance which Port Phillip 
laboured under, in consequence of its connexion with New South 
Wales, was, the misapplication of the land fund ; and he/ as an 
employer of labour, felt that this was a crying evil : for by the 
withholding from Port Phillip of nearly £200,000, which ought 
to have been expended upon it, lie, as well as others similarly 
situated, were compelled to give fully fifty per cent, more for la- 
bour than it could be obtained for in the central part of the ter- 
ritory. (Hear, hear.) Independent of this abstraction of the 
land fund, it was further proposed to withdraw from the district 
a surplus revenue of £ 1 3,000, although there was not a road in it 
which was in a fit state to permit the settlers to bring their pro- 
duce to the market, nor a street in its town passable ; and the 
harbour was most grievously in want of improvement. While 
the improvements in the central districts during the past year 
€ame to the sum of £45,000, those of Port Phillip only amounted 
to £6000 ; and it afforded ample room for complaint that the 
only work upon which the Government had authorized any ex- 
penditure of importance was a Bastile— he alluded to the gaol at 
Melbourne, upon which the Government had expended £30,000, 
while only £350 was devoted to the whole expense of education. 
(Hear, hear.) The petitioners complained most truly of the 
neglect of their interests in this, as well as all other respects, 
which their present connexion with the colony occasioned ; and it 
was obvious that Bills before the House, affecting the wellbeing 
of the district, might have been passed into law before any re- 
presentations on their part could reach the seat of Government. 
Another hardship upon the people of Port Phillip was the extent 
of the police expenses, which amounted there to twelve shillings 
a-head ; while in the adjoining colony of South Australia, they 
amounted only to seven shillings a-head \ and considering all 
these arguments for separation, coupled with the undoubted com- 
petency of the people of that district to manage their own affairs, 
lie was at a loss to see what could be urged against their claim. 

scarcely anything worthy of being called 
a debate on the occasion after this commencement. 
The other Port Phillip members all spoke in favour of 
the motion ; but the Government officials, and all the 
elective members for the Sydney or Middle District 
who were present, evidently wished to get rid of the 
subject as silently as possible : for as it was w r ell ob- 



390 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



served by one of the speakers towards the close of the 
discussion, " all the argument was on the one side, as 
all the voting would be on the other/' The result was 

as fi&ffljftsaM XI8 3HT MOfll ^IJJIHI THCH TO 
.TOMT&NI riHT HOI 



Dr. Lang. 
Dr. Nicholson. 
Mr. Walker, 
Mr. Young. 
Mr. Lowe. 

Mr. Robinson (Teller.) 

.JnsoTfnovoTc 
jJ?.e\r>lC ftjov oi jfi9ao*iqo*i oJ 
dohlf/ ? qillifl4 nol lo JohlaiG 
ueYi to (floloo edi 1o noiiioq n 
-Z9 liiiofrioqua ail moil flaw 



-b& Ifi'ionog "io olsia ngiil ^la^ 
9tefiq9S b gaiotl 'iol— boni&Jljs 

- r I9qi/8 9ffr jfiff-t ? vta9jijM IXJO^ 

jmnpa 00o t egl ei qil'lifll J'io c 



Noes, 19. 
The Commander of the Forces, 
The Colonial Secretary. 
Mr. Cowper. 
Dr. Bland. 
Mr. Panton. 
Mr. Bradley. 
Mr. Foster. 
Captain Dumaresq. 
Mr. Lawson. 
Mr. Coghill. 
Mr. Murray. 



The Attorney-General, 

ail \o 90ci9giil9Jni bus t (jilhJ&): * 
moo ifiinoloo i&rlJo il-js rao c ii no 



Mr. Icely. 

The Auditor-General.. rioijBluqoq 
The Collector of Customs, Unum 
Mr. Maearthur. lamev 
Mr. Therry. : bn*s 

Mr. Lord. V/ 
The Colonial Treasurer ^rori 
iaoloo dati'nQ. bonoiinW^Sk 1 ^)^ 0 iedJ elidv? t zelkn 

It was evident from this result, that the people of 
Port Phillip had nothing to expect, in the way of a 
recommendation of their case to the Imperial Authority, 
from the Legislative Council of New South Wales. It 
occurred to me, however, that as the Port Phillip 
members were themselves unanimous in favour of 
Separation, a joint-petition from these members to Her 
Majesty the Queen might possibly be successful. Under 
this idea, I wrote to the Separation Committee at Mel- 
bourne, recommending them, if they approved of the 
suggestion, to write to the other members, requesting 
them to join in such a petition. The Committee ap- 
proved of my suggestion and wrote accordingly, and at 
a meeting of the Port Phillip members, which was 
called to take the subject into consideration, I w r as 
appointed to prepare a Draft of the Petition. I did so 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



391 



accordingly, and at a subsequent meeting it was cor- 
dially approved of and signed as follows : — 

PETITION TO THE QUEEN FOR THE~SEPARATION 
OF PORT PHILLIP, FROM THE SIX MEMBERS 
FOR THE DISTRICT. 

To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, 

Most Gracious Sovereign, 

We, your Majesty's loyal and dutiful subjects, the undersigned 
members of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, repre- 
senting the entire District of Port Phillip, beg leave to approach 
your Majesty with the assurance of our cordial attachment to 
your Majesty's Royal Person and Government. 

We humbly solicit permission to represent to your Majesty 
that, in our deliberate opinion, the District of Port Phillip, which 
at present constitutes the Southern portion of the colony of New 
South Wales, is peculiarly fitted as well from its superficial ex- 
tent, its geographical position, and its other physical characteris- 
tics, as from the amount, respectability, and intelligence of its 
population, from its entire isolation from all other colonial com- 
munities, and from the comparatively high state of general ad- 
vancement which it has so speedily attained — for being a separate 
and independent colony. 

We beg, therefore, to submit to your Majesty, that the super- 
ficial extent of the District of Port Phillip is 139,500 square 
miles, while that of the undermentioned British colonies is as 
follows : — 

New Brunswick, , . , . 27,70-4 sq. miles.- 
Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, . - . 18,742 do. 
Prince Edward's Island, . . . 2,131 dot 
Newfoundland, . . . . . 36.000 do. 
United Colonies of B. Guiana, . ] 100.000 do. 
Jamaica, the largest of the colonies of the 

Tdmckd IlKlieS? • • • • M00 do. 

Van Dieman's Land, . . . 24*000 do*. 

Occupying, as it does, the south-eastern angle of this vast con- 
tinental island, the District of Port Phillip extends upwards of 
five hundred miles along the Great Southern Ocean, from Cape 
Howe to the eastern boundary of Southern Australia, having the 
extensive harbour or inland sea, from which it derives its name 
and its peculiar commercial capabilities, as its natural outlet, and 
the town of Melbourne, its natural and proper capital, both nearly 
equi-distant from its eastern and western extremities ; while the 
colony of New South Wales Proper commands the whole line of 
the eastern coast along the Pacific Ocean, having the magnificent 
harbour of Port Jackson as its natural outlet, and the city of 



392 



PHltLIPSLANP. 



Sydney its natural and proper capital ; the entire trade and com- 
merce of the southern portion of the colony necessarily concen- 
trating itself in and around the mlet of Port Phillip, while that 
of the northern portion, or Middle District, is necessarily con- 
centrated in and around Port Jackson. The commercial rela- 
tions of Port Phillip are, therefore, with London, not with any 
other portion of the colony of New South Wales ; and these rela- 
tions are managed through the town of Melbourne, not through 
the city and port of Sydney. In this peculiarity of its geographi- 
cal position, your Majesty will, doubtless, recognise the essential 
difference of ..the case of Port Phillip, as regards New South 
Wales, from that of Upper Canada, which had no port of its own 
for transatlantic commerce, as regards the Lower Province of 
^^tocolQpyi ,. 7ao j o0 Sf f t mo tf ^ fI oJ g*i££0iaHT nrV\n rrnri«*ri 

From these physical characteristics of the District, your Majesty 
will perceive tliat the colonists of Port Phillip are entirely isolated 
from those of the Middle or Sydney District of New South Wales 

as much so as they are from those of Van Dieman's Land or 

Southern Australia. The community of Port Phillip, we beg 
leave to add, already comprises upwards of twenty-five thousand 
souls, and is possessed of two millions of sheep, one hundred and 
forty thousand horned cattle, and five thousand horses, besides a 
very large amount of other valuable property in vessels, buildings, 
and cultivated land ; the Ordinary Revenue of the District for the 
year 1843 having amounted to £61,343, 14s. 8d., while the Im- 
ports for that vear amounted to £183,321, and the Exports to 
£277,672. ,8*81 m qujiH*! Tao<I 

In such circumstances, as this extraordinary development of the 
natural resources of the District implies, we humbly submit to your 
Majesty whether the District of Port Phillip is not fully and fairly 
entitled to the rank and position of a separate and independent 
colony, and whether the compulsory union of that District with: 
New South Wales Proper, from the capital of which its own com- 
mercial capital and natural outlet is six hundred miles distant, is 
not as unreasonable in itself, as it is unjust to the inhabitants of 
Port Phillip, and opposed to the whole tenor and practice of 
British colonization. For we beg to remind your Majesty, that 
Port Phillip was originally settled, not from New South Wales, 
but from Van Dieman's Land ; the whole southern coast of this 
vast island having lain waste and unoccupied for nearly half a cen- 
tury after the original settlement of New South Wales ; and we 
humbly submit, that it is accordant with the uniform practice of 
your Majesty's predecessors whenever separate and distinct colo- 
nial communities capable of self-government have in any instance 
been formed within the nominal limits of any particular Colonial 
Territory, to erect such communities into separate and independ- 
ent colonies, although of much more limited extent and far less fa- 
vourably circumstanced for the purpose, than that of Port Phillip. 
In accordance with this principle, the ancient colony of Virginia 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



893 



had two separate portions of its original territory cut off from it 
at two different periods, to form the colonies of Maryland to the 
northward, and of Carolina to th.3 southward ; and although the 
colonists of Virginia petitioned the Government of King Charles 
the First against the separation of Maryland from their territory, 
it was nevertheless effected. In accordance with this principle 
also, the colony of Carolina was itself subsequently divided into 
the two separate colonies of North and South Carolina ; of which 
the latter was at a still later period sub-divided by the establish- 
ment of the colony of Georgia within its original limits. 

But we would numbly beg to refer your Majesty to a much 
more recent and still more apposite precedent for the measure we 
have taken the liberty to recommend for Port Phillip, in the 
separation of Van Dieman's Land from the colony of New South 
Wales in the year 1825 ; for although the island of Van Dieman's 
Land is separated from the territory of New South Wales by 
Bass's Straits, its two principal ports of Hobart Town and Laun- 
ceston are virtually nearer Sydney than Port Phillip ; and in the 
year 1825, when Van Dieman's Land was separated from New 
South Wales and erected into a distinct and independent colony, 
the population and resources, the revenue and trade of that island 
were all inconsiderable and insignificant in comparison with those 
of Port Phillip at the present moment, as your Majesty w r ill 
perceive from the following comparison of their respective sta- 
tistics :^ fl ^*7^ L I baifiuoma §nivfid 8^81 
oTefaoqiSI ads bus t l£S c S8ia o$ b^auoma *xed^ terft ?ol eteoq 

Port Phillip in 1843. 
aifllo taemqolovsb vignif^o sites ahU && ssormiPfnjjoifo dois* nl 
Population, . . . . 25,000 

Ordinary Revenue, 



Expenditure, 
Imports, 
Exports, 

Sheep, 

Cattle, 

Horses, . 



2,000.000 
140,000 



£61,343 14 8 

54,352 0 0 

183,321 0 0 

277,672 0 0 



iq&o LMOism 
k Ann — 59ifm a& ion 
bus <qHhrf<£ jio<I 
Van Dieman's Land in 1 824. 

Population, including 5938 Convicts, 12,643 t L- . , 

Ordinary Revenue, . . . . . £6,866 1 9 

Expenditure, . . . ... 23.126 16 11 

Imports, .... , j' .. ^ . 62,000 0 0 

Sheep, ) Numbers in 1828, ( 354,691 idnrurt 

Cattle, I 3 years after Sepa- \ 84,476 

XT \ x- I a AO- 

Horses, ) ration, . f 2,03o 

If it should be urged, in reply to these statements, that the 
comparatively recent union of the colonies of Upper and Lower 
Canada, as well as those of Demerara and Berbice respectively, 
indicates a totally different policy on the part of the Imperial 



394 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



Government in the present day, we humbly beg to submit to your 
Majesty, that the union of the Canadas was a ease entirely sui 
generis ; the union of these provinces having become indispen- 
sably necessary as a measure of State policy, wisely intended to 
neutralize the great political evils arising from the presence of a 
large colonial population of foreign origin in Lower Canada. 
And as to the union of the colonies of Demerara and Berbice, as 
the coast-line of these united colonies does not exceed 200 miles 
altogether, it would have been impolitic in the extreme to have 
continued to maintain two separate colonial establishments with- 
in the comparatively narrow limits of British Guiana. 

We humbly beg, moreover, to submit to your Majesty, that 
the necessity for the erection of Port Phillip into a separate co- 
lony, altogether independent of New South Wales, has already 
been virtually acknowledged by the Imperial Government ; Port 
Phillip having all along had a Superintendent, a Resident Judge, 
and various other offices and establishments to be found in no 
other subordinate district of the colony. And while this subor- 
dinate, inefficient, and unsatisfactory government costs the inha- 
bitants £44,748, 9s. 3d. per annum for a population of 25,000, 
the Government of the neighbouring colony of South Australia, 
with a population precisely similar in its origin and pursuits, 
costs the inhabitants only £25,000 per annum, for a population 
of 18,000 ; thereby demonstrating that it is not true, as is com- 
monly alleged by those who are opposed to the separation of 
Port Phillip from New South Wales, that the government of that 
district, as a separate and independent colony, would necessarily 
be much more expensive than it is at present. 

But the great practical grievance of which the inhabitants of 
Port Phillip universally, and, in our opinion, justly complain, as 
the result of the compulsory union of that District with the co- 
lony of New South Wales, is the annual abstraction of a large 
portion of the proper revenue of the District, and its appropria- 
tion, under the authority of the Legislative Council, for purposes 
and objects in which the inhabitants of Port Phillip can have no 
interest, no concern ; thereby retarding indefinitely the general 
advancement of the District, and the progressive development of 
its vast resources. For we beg to remind your Majesty, that 
Port Phillip has not only never cost either the mother-country or 
New South Wales one farthing for its establishment or support, 
but a surplus of £1T6,000 of its land revenue, over and above the 
payment of the whole amount of immigration into Port Phillip, 
has gone into the general revenue of the colony, and been appro- 
priated for the encouragement and support of immigration into 
New South Wales Proper ; while the estimated Ordinary Revenue 
of the District for the yearl 845 exceeds the estimated Expenditure 
for that year by no smaller an amount than £19,000 or thereby. 
It will thus appear to your Majesty, that although a representa- 
tive system of Government has in so far been conceded to the 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



395 



colony of New South Wales, that concession, as far as the inha- 
bitants of Port Phillip are concerned, is a mere mockery and de- 
lusion ; the only service which the six members for that District 
can, under existing- circumstances, render to their constituents, 
in a financial point of view, being to assist in legalizing the an- 
nual and unwarrantable abstraction of £19,000 per annum of 
their proper Revenue, under the authority of the General Legis- 
lature. In such circumstances, your Majesty will not be sur- 
prised at the strenuous opposition which all the other members of 
the Legislative Council, save one, have hitherto exhibited to- 
wards the separation of Port Phillip : for so long as it is the in- 
terest of five-sixths of the members of that body to retain Port 
Phillip in a state of vassalage and dependence under New South 
Wales, it is hopeless to expect either financial justice for that 
District from the General Legislature, or a recommendation of 
its erection into a separate and independent colony. 

But your Majesty will, doubtless, perceive that the ease of 
Port Phillip is one really deserving of your Majesty's immediate 
interference in behalf of the inhabitants of that District on an- 
other and still higher ground, when we add, that although Port 
Phillip is allowed to return six Representative Members to the 
Colonial Legislature, not one of the six members actually return- 
ed is a resident in the District : for although the 25.000 inhabit- 
ants of Port Phillip, being almost exclusively recently arrived 
immigrants from the mother-country, or from Van Dieman/^ 
Land and Xew South Wales, and many of them men of superior " 
intelligence and education, undoubtedly comprise a much larger 
number of fit and proper persons to represent the District than 
any other district of an equal amount of population in the colony, 
it has been found impracticable to obtam the services of a single 
resident proprietor or inhabitant of the District for the purpose ; 
men of the requisite intelligence and ability being either unable 
or unwilling to absent themselves from their families and esta- 
blishments for five months successively every year, to attend the 
meetings of a Colonial Legislature at the distance of six or eight 
hundred miles from their usual places of residence. Highly, 
therefore, as we appreciate individually the honour of represent- 
ing the constituency of a District whose rapid and general ad- 
vancement in colonization is unprecedented in the history of your 
Majesty 's vast empire, we cannot consent to continue to hold this 
honourable position without protesting against the injustice that 
is thus done to our constituents, who, if tbey had a Domestic Le- 
gislature, would unquestionably be able to find among themselves 
many men of superior intelligence^ equally able to manage their 
affairs with any of us, and far better acquainted with the circum- 
stances and wants of the District, than we who are all resident in 
Sydney, can possibly be. Nor is this the only evil to which our 
constituents are subjected from the great distance of Port Phillip, 
and especially of the western portion of that District, from the 



696 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



seat of Government : for as gentlemen of the requisite standing 
in society in that portion of the territory cannot be expected to 
attend the meetings of the Select Committees of the Legislative 
Council to give evidence in regard to its actual circumstances 
and more pressing wants, the business of legislation, as far as the 
interests of the District are concerned, is conducted in a great 
measure in the dark. 

On these grounds we humbly pray that your Majesty will be 
graciously pleased to take the case of our constituents into your 
Majesty's favourable consideration, and to order that the requi- 
site steps may be taken for effecting the entire separation of the 
District of Port Phillip from New South Wales, and for its erec- 
tion into a separate and independent colony. 

Reiterating the assurance of our cordial attachment to your 
Majesty's Royal Person and Government. 

We have the honour to be, 

With profound veneration, 

Your Majesty's most loval and dutiful Subjects. 

-ioaq^-r sift 11b j. p . r 0 bi*s^™ 6» J» wah ^b 
John Dunmore Lang, D.D. Charles Nicholson, M.D. 
Thomas Walker. Adolphus W. Young. 

■ — sioW Sffanora 10I ttfiq tedl ot ^firtafq 

Sydney, New South Wales, 

bsB^jfe&wfer hHi?hnoh9'iq ^sArJ. sdi bn& mir^H 
This Petition was presented by the Port Phillip 
members in person, early in January 1845, to His 
Excellency the Governor, who engaged to transmit it 
by the first ship to the Secretary of State for the Colo- 
nies. It was scarcely heard of in the Colony at the 
time, and in a few months thereafter, it was probably 
completely forgotten even by the Port Phillip members 
themselves. In the month of December, however, of 
the same year, the Governor announced that he had 
received a letter from Lord Stanley, of the 12th June 
1845, informing him, that Her Majesty had received 
the petition of the members for Port Phillip very gra- 
ciously, but directing him, as the subject was a very 
grave one, and one on which Her Majesty's Govern- 
ment could not be expected to come to a precipitate 
decision, to submit the matter to the Executive Coun- 
cil^ that that body might examine the Port Phillip 
members individually, together with whatever other 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



397 



competent " witnesses they might choose to hear on the 
subject, and in the event of their decision being in fa- 
vour of the measure proposed, point out what bounda- 
ries should be assigned to the New Colon)?, and what 
form of government should be established within it. 
The Port Phillip members who had signed the petition, 
three of whom, however, were no longer members^ 
Council, were accordingly examined at great length ; 
the opinion of the Executive Council — on whose sen- 
timents, the hint from Lord Stanley appeared to have 
had a marvellous influence* — was strongly in favour of 
Separation ; and the measure, it seems, has since been 
conceded by Her Majesty's Government, although not 
yet carried oxufrolimsusv I 

The tidings of this virtual consummation of the ar- 
dent desires and united endeavours of all the respect- 
able inhabitants of the province reached Port Phillip 
only a few weeks before the visit I had been contem- 
plating to that part of the territory for months before— 
with a view to traverse the district of the Western 
Plains and the Lakes, previously to my intended 
voyage to England— was actually undertaken ; and the 
part I had taken in bringing about that consumma- 
tion unexpectedly procured me a very flattering recep- 
tion on the occasion. A Separation Festival, as it 
was called, was held during my stay, of which the fol- 
lowing notice, extracted from the Port Phillip Her 'akl 
and Melbourne Courier *, will probably not be unin- 
teresting to the reader, while it will afford him some 
idea of the general feelings and views of the Colonists 
on various subjects of great importance to the real 
welfare and advancement of the Colony : — ■} ,51*81 

- bt§ v^y gii[fif ( I no*! 10. m sdi lo noimsq sd$ 

7isy n 7/ joefcfjjs edt &b c mrd §fiho9iib Jnd .ylaxjoxo 

* The Colonial Secretary, the Colonial Treasurer, and the 
Commander of the Forces, all members of both Councils, had aii 
voted against my motion in 1844 ; but in the estimation of such 
unreasoning machines, the argument from Downing Stree: is 
worth both the argument a priori and the argument a vosterlore. 



398 



PHILLIP SL AND. 



GRAND SEPARATION FESTIVAL. 

am sbiv? 5> ^uhoftib ireM oOarifo \i9V9 io 8jafifra9989b oni — norg 
71tR£U. The nations haYe fallen., but thou still art young, 

Thy sun is but rising, whilst others hare set ; 
Mis-government o'er thee her mantle hath flung, 

But Separation shall beam round thee brilliantly yet." 

Moo he, slightly altered. 

Last night, 11th February 1846, was a great night for Port 
Phillip. It was an event called into existence by a great cause, 
and it has proved itself full worthy of the occasion. Since the 
planting of this Colony, no province in the annals of colonization 
has advanced in general prosperity with such gigantic strides as 
Australia Felix, and it is equally singular that no colony in the 
world ever received more Executive unkindness. During the few 
years of its establishment, Sydney has acted the part of an enor- 
mous, never-wearied leech, extracting from our vitals the very 
heart's-blood, to support its own exhausted frame. A general 
spoliation of our revenues, an absentee government, and a mis- 
named Representative Council — an injurious interference with 
our pastoral, agricultural, and commercial interests ; in fine, a 
continual course of bad government was the only obtainable re- 
dress. From the commencement it was foreseen that only one 
great remedial measure for all our wrongs existed — namely, " a 
Repeal of the accursed Union" between us and Sydney, or to 
speak in the apt similitude of Sir Thomas Mitchell, the severing 
of its right wing from the " spread eagle." The consequence of 
this conviction was a persevering agitation of the Colonists ; 
public meetings were convened ; " monster" petitions were got 
up, and the artillery of public opinion was repeatedly booming 
from " beyond the seas" to the Colonial Office in Downing Street. 
On one occasion it was deemed a matter of prudence (though the 
result was easily anticipated) to present a Separation Petition to 
the Legislative Council at Sydney, but with the exception of the 
Port Phillip Representatives, and Mr. Robert Lowe, then an in- 
dependent Government Nominee, our prayer received an unani- 
mous veto from both sides of the house. The Rev. Dr. Lang 
some time after suggested to his colleagues the policy of petition- 
ing Her Most Gracious Majesty, praying her to erect Port Phillip 
into an independent colony. This the Queen has received fa- 
vourably, and Lord Stanley has instructed his Excellency, Sir 
George Gipps, to institute a commission of inquiry. The petition 
instrumental in hastening the consummation of our fondest hopes 
emanated from the suggestion and pen of Dr. Lang, and to testify 
their deep sense of such, services, as well as of his untiring exertions 
in the cause, his constituents resolved upon inviting him to a 
public banquet, and the Port P hill if) Herald had the honour of 
taking the lead in the good cause. This demonstration possessed 
many peculiar characteristics. It was a concentration of all 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



399 



parties — of every "range of politics — every denomination of reli- 
gion — the descendants of every clime. Men differing " wide as 
the poles asunder" from the " guest of the evening" upon many 
points, waived such i( points of belief" by ratifying a temporary 
truce, because they recognised in Dr. Lang a stanch Champion 
of Separation. The entertainment might therefore be looked up- 
on as having been got up as much to honour the measure as the 
man. A numerous and highly respectable attendance was the re- 
sult, and a perfect unanimity prevailed. The brave son of 
" White Albion," and the warm-hearted descendant of " Green 
Erin," — the shrewdness that dwells in " Woody Scotia," and the 
vivacity of " Sunny Australia," honoured the occasion. In fact, 
to borrow a beautiful idea from the immortal author of the Irish 
Melodies — Though some drank from glasses of purple and others 
of blue, yet they filled them from the same bright bowl to a speedy 
Separation. The gentlemen upon whom the office of Stewards 
devolved^ discharged their trust to admiration. Invitations were 
transmitted to several high officials, and others of much note, 
who regretted their inability to attend. Amongst these were 
their Honours Justices Therry and A'Beckett, Edward Curr, and 
Edward Jones Brewster, Esqs., Members of Council — the Clergy 
of all denominations, and the Editors of the Local Journals. 
The Judges and Mr. Brewster would have attended, had it not 
been for the Bar-Dinner given to our esteemed ex-Judge. In 
consequence of no ordinary building in Melbourne being found of 
sufficient accommodation, the Stewards selected the Queen's 
Theatre, as the most suitable arena for the banquet. It was 
most tastefully decorated. 

The chair, which upon this occasion was beneath the front boxes 
in the dress-circle, was surmounted with the roseate flag of Bri- 
tain, with a yellow crow:i wrought in the centre ; over the latter 
was the word " Royalty," and under, the memorable expression 
of Sir George Gipps — " Help thyself, and Heaven will help you. 1 ' 
Over the Croupiers' chairs was a painting by Mr. Opie, the artist, 
of Prometheus chained to the rock and the vulture gnawing his 
liver. It will be in the recollection of every proficient in the 
classic lore of antiquity that Prometheus, having succeeded in 
climbing to Heaven, stole fire from the chariot of the sun — as a 
punishment for which Jupiter, " the father of gods and men," 
ordered Vulcan to convey the thief to Mount Caucasus, where he 
was chained to a rock, and for thirty thousand years, tradition 
has it, a vulture was gnawing at his liver, which yet never dimin- 
ished. A very forcible parallel exists between this famous sup- 
position of ancient mythology and the treatment Port Phillip 
receives from Sydney. To an imaginative mind it would appear 
that the evil genius of Australia Felix constituted the Middle 
District a bird of prey to feed upon our « liver" — but the analogy 
is not altogether perfect, as the liver of Prometheus is alleged to 
have suffered no diminution, whereas our " liver" (the Revenue 



400 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



of the Colony) has in fact been dragged from the body and de- 
voured some six hundred miles away, when a new liver springs 
into being and instantly shares a similar fate. Altogether, how- 
ever, the decoration was most appropriaie^and admirably painted. 
The pit of the theatre was boarded over in the same manner as 
at the Burns' Festival, and the place being brilliantly lighted by 
a host of chandeliers, the reflection < f their illumination acting 
upon the profusion of evergreens waving in every direction pre- 
sented a magical effect. As a climax to all, there was the bou- 
quet of loveliness that graced the dress-circle. The admission of 
" Eve's fair daughters" contributed much to the effect of the 
evening, and when one gazed from the table to the array of 
charms in the boxes, the following beautiful passage from the 
" Pleasures of Hope," relative to a scene in the Garden of Eden, 
naturally intruded upon his thoughts :— 

6 In vain to soothe the solitary shade 

Aerial notes in mingling measure play'd, 

The summer wind that shook the spangled tree, 

The whispering wave, the murmur of the bee ; 

Still slowly pass'd the melancholy day, 

And still the stranger wist not where to stray ; 

The world was sad, the garden was a wild, 

And man, the hermit, sigh'd — till woman smiled !" 

Whilst the company were assembling, and prior to grace being 
said, the band played the fine stock tune — " The Roast beef of 
Old England ;" between the first and second course a favourite 
Scotch air ; and on the removal of the cloth " St. Patrick's Day." 
Notwithstanding the state of the weather and the Bar-dinner, 
about 350 gentlemen w T ere present, the theatre being literally 
crowded. Alderman Moor [Mayor of Melbourne for the year 
184-5] presided in his usual able and agreeable manner, supported 
on his right by Dr. Lang and Dr. Macarthur, J. P., and on his 
left by Dr. Thomson and Alderman Condell. The office of crou- 
piers was most efficiently performed by Councillors Greeves and 
Johnston. 

After the cloth was removed the President rose and said — The 
first toast which I have to propose to you is, " The health of Her 
Majesty the Queen ;" of her who has so favourably received and 
so graciously listened to our prayer for Separation (cheers) ; of 
her who commands and enjoys our allegiance and affection. 
(Applause.) This toast needs not in any society of Britons " the 
foreign aid" of eloquence to ensure its warm and enthusiastic re- 
ception. I give you then — " The health of the Queen, God bless 
her." (Drank with every mark of loyalty, the company standing.) 
Tune by the Band—" The National Anthem." 

After various other loyal sentiments and toasts, the President 
rose and said — I now come to the toast of the evening ; and here 
I cannot refrain from expressing my regret that it has not fallen 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



401 



into the hands of some gentleman more competent to perform 
the task. In so large a "building as this is, and surrounded by so 
many of my fellow citizens, I fear that I shall not make myself 
heard by all ; but I must ask their kind indulgence, and beg 
them to remember that this is * my first appearance on this 
stage." (Laughter and cheers.) Gentlemen, it is known to all of 
you, that for many years past we have been struggling to gain a 
political existence — (cheers) — separate and apart from New South 
Wales, and that we have sought the erection of our fair and 
prosperous district into a separate colony. (Loud cheers.) We 
have with voices deep, loud and unanimous, remonstrated against 
being any longer continued the dependency of a dependency. 
(Loud cheers.) We have attained the growth, and we possess 
the vigour of manhood. (Cheers.) The period of our minority 
is past — we have paid our guardian handsomely for his care of 
us — (cheers) — but we need him no longer. The relation that 
must henceforth subsist between us is that of equality. We de- 
sire to remain friends, but friends on an equal footing. We de- 
sire to stand a separate and independent colony — (cheers) — de- 
pendent only on her most gracious Majesty. Gentlemen, to at- 
tain this end the people of Port Phillip appealed by petition to 
the Governor and to the Legislative Council of New South 
Wales. And how did the latter receive our appeal ? With 
folded arms and in silence ; its members heard our prayer, and 
in silence they rejected it. W r e spoke in the calm and sober 
voice of reason and truth. (Cheers.) We appealed to facts, 
supported by statistics, which they could not controvert, and to 
their sense of justice, which they would not exercise. But no, 
gentlemen, it was only Port Phillip they had to do with, and she 
was too insignificant in their opinion to excite their alarm — 
(laughter and cheers,)— do what they would i and she was too 
weak, they fondly thought, to break the bonds which bound her. 
(Applause.) So to the vote they went, when, with one honour- 
able exception, all the Members of the Legislative Council then 
present, voted against Port Phillip and her representatives. 
But, gentlemen, there was " a Chiel amang them takin' notes." 
(Lo.wjliter and cheers.) With ready hand he prepared a petition 
to the Queen, which was signed by all our members — was for- 
warded to her Majesty, received the most gracious consideration, 
and elicited an equally gracious reply. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, 
that petition brought matters to a crisis. Separation was deemed 
by the authorities at home to be our right ; and Sir George re- 
ceived his instructions. (Cheers.) But who gained this great 
step towards separation? (Cheers.) Who was "the Chiel 
amang them takin' notes?" Need I name him? He sits at 
your festive board ; he is your guest to night. (Continued and 
vehement applause.) To you, (the Speaker here turned to the 
evening guest,) Doctor Lang, in the name of this meeting, and on 
behalf of the people of Port Phillip, I tender our warm and 
2 C 



402 



PHILLIPSL AND . 



hearty acknowledgments {cheers) for your services in the great 
cause of Separation \ and sure I am, that when the future histo- 
rian of Port Phillip shall trace her origin and rise, your name 
will be found inscribed upon the page as one of the most success- 
ful champions of her early rights. {Loud cheers.) Gentlemen, 
I call upon you all to join me in the toast — fill high the sparkling 
glass to " Dr. Lang {cheers) fill higher yet, it is to " Separation:" 
{cheers) make the rafters ring again with the loud response, 
The toast is — " Dr. Lang and Separation." (Here the Theatre 
reverberated to the artillery of applause which rang right 
through it.) 

Dr.. Lang rose to respond, and was most enthusiastically received 
for several minutes. In order to render himself audible to those 
at the extreme end of the Theatre, he was compelled to ascend 
the table, and proceeded as fellows : — 

Mr. Chatrman and Gentlemen, — All I can do in acknowledg- 
ment of this most unexpected but most gratifying testimonial of 
your cordial approval of my conduct as one of your representa- 
tives in the Legislative Council, especially in the matter of Se- 
paration, is to return you, which I assure you I do from the bot- 
tom of my heart, my sincere and most respectful thanks. 
{Cheers.) I am not vain enough to suppose that my humble 
efforts in that capacity could have merited anything of the land ; 
but as this rather enhances the kindness of the demonstration on 
your part, it will not diminish the gratitude with which it ought 
to be received on mine. {Cheers.) I ascribe this demonstration 
in great measure to the happy, but somewhat fortuitous accident 
through which my name and efforts happen at the present mo- 
ment to be associated in your minds with the furtherance of that 
great object in the promotion of which you are all so deeply in- 
terested, the speedy and entire separation of this province from 
the colony of New South Wales. {Renewed cheers.) It is not 
for me therefore to assume anything on such an occasion, as if 
my services in this matter had been of such extraordinary merit 
as your kindness induces you to suppose they have, but simply to 
be encouraged by this great demonstration of kindliness on your 
part to renewed efforts and exertions in the same cause, where- 
ever they are likeliest to prove successful. {Great cheering.) 
Gentlemen, when the constituency of this province did me the 
honour to consider me a fit and proper person to hold the office 
of a Representative of this district in the Legislative Council, 
nearly three years ago, I accepted that office (which I confess I 
was induced to do chiefly from an enthusiastic desire to promote 
the cause of civil and religious liberty in this land,) on the un- 
derstanding that Port Phillip expected that every man in that 
important situation should do his duty. {Renewed cheering.) 
Now, if you are satisfied that I have duly responded to this ex- 
pectation, as your presence on this occasion and the flattering re- 
ception you have just given me fully demonstrate, I am not con- 



4£l&goi a 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



403 



scious of having done anything more. Concurring, as I did en- 
tirely from the first, in the views of those who were anxious to 
obtain for this dependency the rank of a separate and indepen- 
dent colony, I brought forward a motion on the subject in the 
Legislative Council, as soon as it was practicable and expedient 
to do so, in the Session of 1844. You are all well aware of the 
ill success of that motion. It was strongly opposed by the Go- 
vernment and by all the nominee members, with one solitary ex- 
ception ; and, what was worse, there was not a single elective 
member for the Middle District in its favour ; (Cries of Shame ! 
Shame !) — the Port Phillip members, with the solitary exception 
I have mentioned, standing alone. In such circumstances I saw 
plainly that there was no hope of ever carrying such a measure 
through the Legislative Council ; but as I had frequently been 
foiled before, in far humbler efforts for the welfare and advance- 
ment of this colony, by rebuffs from the Local Authorities, in cases 
in which I had afterwards been successful by taking them, as the 
sailorssay, " on the other tack" — (laughter) — it occurred to me that 
there was still some hope for Port Phillip and Separation if a 
strong petition on the subject should be forwarded to her Majesty, 
'from the six Port Phillip members themselves ; (cheers) — and the 
Separation Committee, whom I consulted on the subject, having 
sanctioned and approved of the measure, it was resolved upon 
accordingly, and the drawing up of the petition was intrusted to 
myself. The reasoning and statistics of that petition were not 
materially different from those of the other petitions that had 
previously emanated from the district ; but there was one ; >nrt of 
it necessarily and essentially different from anything contained 
in any of the others, and which, it struck me, must " touch the 
conscience of the King." (Laughter.) It was that paragraph 
in which the six members, who were all resident in Sydney, after 
expressing their high sense of the honour that had been done 
them by the constituency of Port Phillip in electing them their 
Representatives, and representing their utter inability to do justice 
to their constituents at so great a distance, offered to denude 
themselves of their Legislative office and honours, provided that 
justice should only be done to Port Phillip, in the concession of a 
separate and independent colonial legislature, the members of 
which should be selected|from amongst themselves, and would 
therefore be far better able to consult their best interests than 
members resident in Sydney. (Great cheering.) I was appre- 
hensive, I confess, at first, that some of my respected colleagues 
might not be altogether disposed to allow such a paragraph to 
pass — to submit to such " a self-denying ordinance," as the Long 
Parliament would have called it. (Laughter.) But I was doing 
my colleagues wrong in doubting for a moment their willingness 
to attach their names to such a document. (Renewed cheering.) 
They were thoroughly honest men, sincerely desirous that justice 
should be done to Port Phillip, whatever might become of them- 
selves as legislators ; and they signed the petition accordingly. 



404 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



with the utmost cheerfulness— for which I consider they are well 
entitled to all honour and esteem from this constituency. (Long 
and vehement cheering.) I repeat it, I trusted not a little to the 
moral effect of this exhibition of disinterestedness on the part of 
the Port Phillip members. For it is not every day that the 
Home Authorities receive a document from six members of Par- 
liament, whether Imperial or Colonial, offering virtually to resign 
their legislative office and honours, and to submit to something 
like political annihilation for the good of the people. (Renewtd 
cheering.) I was apprehensive, I confess, that Lord Stanley would 
treat the statistics of our petition in much the same way as he 
had treated those of your? ; but there was something in this tacit 
appeal to the better feelings of his nature, which I felt confident 
he could not resist — and I am truly happy to find that I was not 
mistaken. (Ch^yrs.) Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, T congra- 
tulate you all on the prospect of the speedy attainment of this 
great and reasonable object of your desires. (Charing h>i<g and 
loud.) In the course of the present examination on the Separa- 
tion Question before the Executive Council, it was stated in a 
sort of random conversation on the subject by a distinguished 
personage,* (as reported to me by one of my colleagues.) that if 
Great Britain wished to retain her hold of her Australian Colo- 
nies, the best thing she could do was to grant the Port Phillip 
people Separation ; for in that case the two Colonies of Port 
Phillip and New South Wales would be sure to get into such a 
state of rivalry with each other, and be cutting each others' 
throats at such a rate, that they would never be either able or 
willing to combine for any purpose against the Parent State. 
(Lauahtyr.) Now there are no fewer than three fallacies in this 
idea^ to each of which, considering the highly influential quarter 
from which the sentiment emanated, I shall briefly advert. It 
was evidently taken for granted, therefore, by the distinguished 
personage to whom I have alluded, that British Colonists are 
predisposed to separate from the Parent State, whenever they 
have the power to do so, and to set up for themselves. Now I 
maintain, without fear of contradiction, that this is not the fact. 
(Great cheering.) I maintain that in no part of the world have 
British Colonists ever evinced such a disposition in time past, 
till they were driven to it by a long course of injustice, infatua- 
tion, misgovernment, and oppression on the part of then 1 rulers : 
and I maintain also, that there is not the slightest probability of 
their ever evincing such a disposition in different circumstances 
in time to come. (Loud and continued cheerinp.) What is there, 
I ask, to induce British Colonists to wish to separate from the 
Parent State ? (Cheers.) Is the mere crossing of the sea suffi- 
cient to effect a complete change in their natural dispositions, in 
their entire feelings and affections, as free-born Britons I (Re- 
ne-iced cheers.) Have British Colonists no share or interest in 

* Sir George Gipps.'^ °* bfl * 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



405 



the glorious inheritance of their common country, in the honour 
and renown of being- the first of nations — that nation " whose 
flag has braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze," 
and still floats gloriously as the universally recognised symbol 
of freedom all over the world ? {Tremendous cheering.) Have 
British Colonists no share or interest in the glorious achieve- 
ments of their common country both past and future — that coun- 
try which is evidently destined to give laws and language, free- 
dom and religion, to so vast a portion of the habitable globe % 
(Vehement and protracted cheering.) Gentlemen, I can have no 
sympathy with those who can for one moment suppose that 
British Colonists are destitute of such high and ennobling feelings 
as those we derive from the glorious land of our birth, and I 
confess I consider it a serious calamity to all concerned, that 
Governors and Secretaries of State should so generally en- 
tertain such unfounded ideas, and should act upon them so 
systematically as they do, and so fatally, I will add, to the 
general prosperity of the empire. (Renewed cheers,) We have 
been told by the highest political authority in the mother-coun- 
try, Sir Robert Peel, that the colonies are an integral part 
of the empire, and we have been told also by every body 
else of any authority at home, that the Englishman carries along 
with him the laws and political institutions of his native country, 
his rights and privileges as a British subject, wherever he plants 
his foot under the flag of Britain. (Cheers.) But you are all 
well aware, gentlemen, that these are not facts, but mere falla- 
cies. The two grand principles of the British Constitution — those 
that constitute, so to speak, the palladium of our national free- 
dom, the birthright of every Briton — are Taxation by Represen- 
tation, and a government directly responsible to the representa- 
tives of the people. (Loud and reiterated cheers.) But will 
any person presume to tell us that the Englishman of Port Phil- 
lip or New South Wales has carried these rights and privileges 
along with him, to this integral part of the empire, forsooth % 
(Laughter.) If so, how are we to account for the fact of a Go- 
vernor taxing this whole community, in one of its most numerous 
and influential sections, without the consent or approval of their 
Representatives, under the mere authority of a Secretary of State, 
on the pretext of charging them a rent for the use of the waste 
lands of the Crown % (Cries of Hear ! Hear !) How are we to 
account for the Local Government persisting in its policy in any 
matter, from week to week, and from month to month, in open 
defiance of overwhelming majorities of the Legislature % It is 
the system of Colonial Government, you will perceive, I am de- 
nouncing, and not the men who in any instance may have been 
employed in working it out. (Cheers.) It is lamentable to think 
that under such a system Governors and Secretaries of State 
should be blind enough not to perceive that to treat the Colonies 
with kindness and confidence would be the surest way both to 
conciliate and to preserve their affection. (Renewed cheers.) Only 



406 



PHILLIP SLAXD . 



treat us in reality as an integral part of the empire — only give 
us that birthright of every Briton, of which we have hitherto 
been unjustly and wrongfully deprived, taxation by representa- 
tion, and a government in some degree responsible to the people 
— and I maintain that the chain of affection that binds us to our 
beloved fatherland, to its government and its institutions, will 
only become the stronger for distance, and the more binding and 
endearing for lapse of time. (Tremendous and long continued 
cheering.) The second fallacy in the sentiment put forth by the 
high personage I have alluded to, in the course of the Separation 
inquiry in the Executive Council, viz. That if this measure 
should be granted, Port Phillip and New South Wales would 
thenceforth be at daggers'-drawing, and cutting each other's 
throats, is to me I confess as incomprehensible as it is incredible. 
I grant that, under the existing system, there is ample room for 
such hostile feelings. New South Wales has virtually established 
a sort of protectorate in Port Phillip, exactly similar to that of 
the French in Tahiti. (Laughter and cheers.) She begins by 
paying you this truly French compliment, that you are not fit to 
govern yourselves, and that she will do it for you — a compliment 
which people are in the habit of paying their unfortunate rela- 
tives before sending them to the lunatic asylum. (Boars of 
laughter.) She then follows up this compliment by telling you, 
also in French, that you have more money than you well know 
how to manage, and that she will relieve you of a part of it, 
which she requires as a sovereign remedy for a disease in the 
chest she has caught in Sydney ; (uproarious laughter) — and when 
you begin to remonstrate, hinting that " you doirt understand it," 
and that "there must be some mistake,'' she at once assumes her 
own ancient and proper attitude, aud pulling out her double-bar- 
relled pistols, reminds you that this is Botany Bay, and commands 
you to Q Stand, and deliver !" ( Universed and irrepressible laugh- 
ter.) Now I can easily conceive that there should be bad feel- 
ing and rancorous hostility enough engendered under such a sys- 
tem ; I can easily conceive that it should occasionally even make 
some of you forget yourselves so as to come a little too near the 
truth, by calling us — a den of thieves, (f niima d laughter.) Butdo 
away with this system of legalized injustice and oppression ; abolish 
this French protectorate of Port Phillip : establish a separate and 
independent Colonial Government in this province, and I cannot 
for my life divine how or why there should any longer be any- 
thing like ill-feeling or rancorous hostility — daggers-drawing or 
throat-cutting between the colonists of Port Phillip and those of 
New South Wales. (Great cheering.) There will be rivalry, I 
have no doubt, honourable rivalry, between the two colonies. 
They will be running, I expect, neck for neck, in the race of ge- 
neral improvement ; and as the Irishman who saw a mail-coach 
for the first time, and observed with astonishment and delight 
how the little wheels were running with all their might, while the 
great ones were vainly endeavouring to overtake them, called out 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



407 



for their encouragement — Well done, little wheels ! So would I 
to Port Phillip in the prospect of Separation ; for I feel confident 
that the little wheels of this province will very soon get before the 
great wheels of New South Wales, and make them hind-wheels 
in real earnest. (Modi laivghtef lMr%im^lM with cite* rs.) Gentle- 
men, I abhor and detest the feeling that would make the prospe- 
rity of any one country or province dependent in any degree on 
the downfal or depression of any other. Such a feeling, ycu are 
well aware, was the prevalent feeling for ages between the two 
greatest nations of Europe, England and France ; and it led 
their respective governments to be guilty to each other of acts of 
meanuess and injustice, as utterly contemptible and disgraceful 
as that of the malicious creature in the lower walks of society 
who goes out in some starless night, and breaks down his neigh- 
bour's fence that his pigs or cattle may get into the parish- pound 
before morning. When was there ever a period in the history 
of France when that great country was in a state of as high pros- 
perity as at present, after thirty years of profound peace with 
England, her ancient and natural enemy, forsooth \ [Loud 
cheers.) And when was there ever a period of greater national 
prosperity in England than at the present moment, after thirty 
years of profound peace with France ? (R< ,■■ d cheers.) In 
short, I feel confident that the prosperity of Port Phillip as a se- 
parate and independent colony will insure the general advance- 
ment of New South Wales, and that the prosperity of New South 
Wales will also insure the general advancement of Port Phillip, 
(Gr< m cheer IkO.) The third fallacy contained in the sentiment 
put forth by the high personage to whom I have been alluding, 
in the course of the Separation inquiry, viz. that the establish- 
ment of separate and independent colonies in the same territory 
would prevent their inhabitants from combining for any common 
object against the Parent State — this fallacy. I say. appears to me 
to imply a singular degree of inattention to the past history and 
results of British colonization. The thirteen colonies of America 
were not nearly so large altogether as this one great Colony at 
this moment. They had each their separate interests and ob- 
jects ; but when injustice and oppression, on the part of the in- 
fatuated rulers of Great Britain at the time, united them as one 
man in defence of their common rights and privileges, the revo- 
lutionary cord was not found the weaker, because it consisted of 
thirteen strands. [Cheers,) But I anticipate far better things, 
gentlemen, for these splendid colonies than the recurrence of 
any such dreadful calamity as Separation in that sense of the 
phrase. [Loud cheers.) That system of folly and injustice, the 
Colonial system of Great Britain, is evidently one of those old 
things that are now vanishing away. A better system, I feel 
confident, is shortly to be introduced amongst us — a system some- 
what more accordant with common sense, with the rights and 
privileges of colonists as men who love and revere their country, 
and with the rapid development of the vast resources of our 



408 



PHILLIP SLANI*. 



magnificent empire. (Reneiced cheers.) In the prospect of yottr 
speedily attaining the great object of your desires in the erection 
of this province into a separate and independent colony, it were 
desirable that its extent and capabilities should be somewhat bet- 
ter known than they are at home. It is not wonderful, indeed, 
that there should be so little correct information on that subject 
among well-informed persons in the mother-country, when there 
are such vague notions afloat as we find prevalent on the spot. 
In the first Session of the Legislative Council, my able and es- 
teemed friend and colleague Dr. Nicholson — {cheers) — observed, 
in one of his speeches on immigration — when referring to the Dis- 
trict of Port Phillip, and evidently wishing to make the most of 
it— that it was as large as the kingdom of Portugal. It struck 
me at the time, I recollect, that the district might be somewhat 
larger ; but never having compared them on the map, and hav- 
ing only a vague idea on the subject, like Dr. Nicholson himself, 
the circumstance made no impression on my mind. On my way 
overland, however, from Sydney, I happened to find in one of 
the Melbourne papers, at an inn on the road, a copy of a letter 
on the subject of Separation, addressed to the clerk of the Exe- 
cutive Council, by your Municipal Chief — a gentleman for whose 
talents and acquirements I beg to say I have the highest respect 
—-and in that letter I was not a little amused to find Dr. Nicholson's 
random observation solemnly reproduced, and the district of Port 
Phillip formally compared, in a public document, submitted to 
the Government, in favour of Separation, to the kingdom of Por- 
tugal. I was at no loss to discover the quarter in which this 
idea had originated. It had evidently been taken up in Mel- 
bourne as a res judicata, a thing solemnly decided by the Faculty 
in Sydney, which the Port Phillip doctor had of course only to 
take for granted.* (Laughter.) I determined, however, as I 
had in the interval ascertained the dimensions of Port Phillip, to 
ascertain also, from the first old Gazetteer or Geography-book I 
could lay my hands on, the exact measure of the kingdom of 
Portugal. Happening, accordingly, on my return to Melbourne 
a few days since by the mail from Portland, to find an odd vo- 
lume of a Compendium of Geography of the last century on the 
manteLpiece of a Scotchman's Inn at the Grange, I turned up 
the description of the kingdom of Portugal, and found it was 
three hundred miles in length and one hundred in breadth, and 
therefore contained an area of only 30,000 square miles. But 
the district of Port Phillip, which I got measured on the map in 
the Surveyor-General's office in Sydney for my speech on Sepa- 
ration in the Legislative Council, contains an area of 139.500 
square miles, and would therefore make at least four kingdoms 
of Portugal, with a bittock, as we call it in Scotland, besides, 



T ft The present Mayor of Melbourne is Dr. Palmer, a physician, 
but not in practice. jmi Yi t aoi£&&8* iotfa o* iimdur 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



409 



sufficiently large to make two kingdoms of Hanover and a king- 
dom of Holland to the bargain. (Cheers.) Or, to take a standard 
with which we are all better acquainted, the district of Port 
Phillip contains an area of as great an extent as England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland together, and the island of Van Dieman's Land 
besides. [Cheers.) And as it was given in evidence by highly 
competent parties, before the Immigration Committee of the 
Legislative Council last session, that a large portion of this dis- 
trict would acre for acre maintain as large a population as Great 
Britain, it is unquestionably a splendid province of which you are 
seeking the erection into a separate and independent colony; and 
in laying the foundations of society in this district, you are not 
only providing for the future establishment of a mere colony, but 
of a great and powerful empire. {Great cheering.) As you are 
all aware that I am on the eve of returning once more to England, 
where I may have an opportunity of offering an opinion in 
various influential quarters on some points of vital importance to 
this province, it may not be out of place for me very briefly to 
state what that opinion is on the points 1 refer to. I am there- 
fore decidedly of opinion, in common with the whole Squatting 
interest of the colony, from Moreton Bay to Portland Bay, that 
to fix a higher minimum price than five shillings an acre, for 
land available only for the grazing of sheep and cattle in this 
colony, is monstrous and absurd (strong expressions of assent) ; 
and that whatever may be the object of the actual policy of Go- 
vernment, in fixing a minimum price of one pound an acre for 
such land, its obvious tendency is to retain the waste lands of this 
colony in the hands of the crown, and to create and perpetuate a 
species of serfdom as repugnant to the whole spirit and tenor of 
the British Constitution, and as degrading to all concerned, as 
that of Russia itself. (Strong egressions of acquiescence, mingled 
with cheers.) I am also of opinion that the Lands' Act of 1842 
not only established a principle, but provided a prospective fund, 
for Immigration, from the sale of the Waste Lands, of which 
one-half of the proceeds was thenceforth to be devoted to the 
promotion of Immigration and. the other to internal improve- 
ments. Now it appears to me, although I have never seen the 
idea brought forward in any quarter in the colonial press, that in 
the face of that act it is unconstitutional and a violation of an 
actual compact between the Imperial Parliament and the people 
of this colony, to attempt, as the Local Government are now 
doing, and endeavouring to persuade the Imperial Government 
to do, to establish another principle and to create another 
fund for Immigration, by levying imposts on the squatters, 
under the exclusive authority of the Crown, for the mere 
occupation of the waste lands. (Expressions of assent.) That 
the squatters are proper subjects for taxation, in considera- 
tion of the great advantages they derive from the occupation of 
such lands, I admit, and I believe they would all most willingly 
submit to such taxation, if imposed on an equitable principle. 



410 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



But I maintain that any imposts on this important class of the 
community should be made under the exclusive authority of the 
Local Legislature, and that the proceeds of such imposts should 
be appropriated exclusively to internal improvement — to the con- 
struction of roads and bridges, and the opening up of the coun- 
try to render it eligible for the purposes of man. (Chters.) 
There is a different principle and a different fund already esta- 
blished by the Imperial Parliament for the promotion of emigra- 
tion — in the proceeds of the sales of Waste Land. And if I am 
told that this fund no longer exists, I would reply, that the mini- 
mum price of waste land generally is greatly too high, and that 
the proper means have not yet been taken to render the superior 
land eligible for purchase. For I maintain, that for land of a 
superior quality for agriculture, land within a moderate distance 
of a port or market, or that may easily be brought within such 
distance through the appliances aud improvements of modern 
civilization, a pound an acre is by no means too high a mini- 
mum price. (Straw expressions of assent.) Nay, in my opinion, 
it would be absolutely suicidal for the Government to dispose of 
such lands on a lower minimum price, and ruinous to the best 
interests of the colony. (Strong egressions of acquiescence.) In 
the sale of such land, provided only that the proper means were 
taken to render it available for the purpose, there is in my opin- 
ion an ample and sufficient fund for immigration, under the pro- 
visions of the existing Act. In the prospect of your speedy 
erection into a separate and independent colony, it may not be 
inexpedient to take a hurried glance at the actual constitution of 
society in this district — to see how it is fitted for so great a 
charge in its circumstances and condition. In looking around 
me, therefore, in this province, I am strongly reminded of the 
observation of a lively German princess of the last century, who, 
in describing to a friend the dull monotony of the little German 
court and principality in which she lived, observed that they 
were all employed in conjugating the same verb, * SPt m n uyer" 
which signifies to he killing one'self with ennui. Now. the com- 
munity of Port Phillip, it appears tome, are all conjugating the 
same verb, although a somewhat different one from that of the 
German princess. For in whatever direction one moves out of 
Melbourne, whether north, east, or west, all he sees or hears is 
merely a repetition of this colonial note — "I squat, thou squat- 
test, he squats ; we squat, ye or you squat, they squat.*'" (Much 
laughter.) Some have reached the perfect tense of the verb, 
(i I have squatted," and when one sees their well-fenced pad- 
docks, their cultivated fields, their neat gardens, and their com- 
fortable dwellings — some of wood with stone-built chimneys and 
others of brick — all in the great wilderness, it cannot be denied 
that they have made a very perfect and complete thing of it after 
all. Others have only got to the future tense, / sh<uV <?r icill 
squat, and you accordingly see their flocks and herds, and bullock 
drays, with all the other requisites for another squatting esta- 



THE SEPARATION QUESTION. 



411 



blishmertt, moving slowly along to the distant interior. In short, 
as is said at the close of the other and more frequent per- 
formances in this building, so it may be said of almost the 
whole community of Port Phillip, Exeunt omnes, "they are 
all gone out a-squatting." (Much laughter.) Now, it ap- 
pears to me that this is not exactly the condition of society 
best calculated to advance the general prosperity of the colony, 
or to promote the interests of the squatters themselves. If 
things, for example, are to continue as at present in this most 
important respect, the flocks and herds of the squatters will very 
soon be valuable only for their wool, their hides, and their tallow; 
and a vast quantity of valuable animal food that might otherwise 
afford sustenance to myriads of our half-starved countrymen at 
home will be lost or destroyed. Even horses will very soon be 
so numerous and cheap in this district, that the very beggars, 
w r hen you have them, will be mounted, as they are in South 
America, without realizing the old proverb which consigns " beg- 
gars on horseback" to a personage I will not name. (Laughter.) 
In such circumstances it appears to me that some great and 
vigorous effort should be made at the present most important 
crisis of your colonial history for the introduction and settlement 
in this province of a numerous agricultural population, to develop 
the vast resources of the country, and to form a broad and per- 
manent basis for the institutions of our fatherland. With all 
deference to the Squatters, I agree entirely in the sentiment so 
well expressed on one occasion by the late General Jackson, for- , 
merly President of the United States of America — " The strength 
and glory of a country are its population, and the best part of that 
population are the cultivators of the soil." (Cheers.) I am de- 
cidedly of opinion that it is as much the interest of Port Phillip 
as it is of England to encourage and to promote by every means 
the formation of 

" A brave yeomanry, their country's pride." 

(Renewed cheers.) I am aware there are some of the great 
Squatters not very friendly to the introduction of a numerous 
agricultural population into this province, under the idea that it 
might interfere materially with their runs. But when one con- 
siders that at the utmost only one-seventh, and in all likelihood 
only one-tenth of the whole available land of this colony would 
be considered, for at least a century to come, of superior quality 
for cultivation, it is surely most unreasonable to cherish any ap- 
prehension of the kind. One-tenth of the available land of this 
province is surely but a small quantity to be occupied for the 
purposes of cultivation — for the introduction and settlement of 
an industrious and virtuous population, and the gradual supply 
of all the labour that may be requisite for the Squatters them- 
selves. It has been urged, indeed, that such a population would 
not find a market for their grain. But not to allude more particu- 
larly to the strong probability of the speedy opening of the English 



412 



PHILLIPSLAND, 



ports for the consumption of colonial grain, I would only remind 
you that of the sixteen millions of Whites in the United States of 
America, not fewer than fourteen are employed in agriculture, 
besides a large majority of the entire negro population ; and if 
so vast a portion of the population of that country can live by 
agriculture, why should not the same proportion of the whole 
population of this colony be able to live by it here % Much of the 
land of the western portion of this province is of such fertility, 
that even in its natural state it will maintain a sheep, and even a 
bullock to the acre ; but I confess I should like much better to 
see each acre of such land maintaining its man. (Cheers.) Be- 
sides, there are many productions for which the soil and climate 
of this province are admirably adapted besides grain of all de- 
scriptions. Not to speak of the vine and the olive and tobacco, 
which would all thrive here wonderfully, there is one production 
for which the soil and climate are admirably adapted, and which 
1 am confident will at no distant period form one of the great 
staple articles of export in this province, I mean flax ! (Cheers.) 
In the course of my recent tour to the Portland Bay District, I 
ascertained that flax is indigenous in that part of the territory, 
and that extensive marshy plains towards the Glenelg River are 
actually covered with the native plant. In short, it is beyond all 
controversy that this portion of the colony is admirably adapted 
for the settlement of an industrious and virtuous population ; and 
going home, as I intend doing, at this important crisis, I am in 
great hopes that I may be instrumental in giving such an impulse 
to emigration in the mother-country as will lead to the speedy in- 
troduction and settlement of many thousands of our countrymen 
at home of that most important class of society in this province. 
(Cheers.) Gentlemen, if in any way I can be of service to this 
district in the mother-country, either in promoting the cause of 
Separation, or in advancing the best interests of the province in 
any other way, you may rest assured I shall not be wanting in 
my efforts to the utmost of my ability. (Renewed cheering.) 

The Honourable and Reverend Gentleman then repeating his 
thanks for the honour conferred upon him, resumed his seat 
amidst the most rapturous applause.* 



* A Statement of the whole Expenditure of the Province of 
Port Phillip under the present system of Government, will be 
found in Appendix C. 



t no I has 



bairns* \ltso bfuow I ,n«rnj Lfiinoloo lo aobqfnrraifoo edt 10I ateoq 
to estaiS BotifllT orfi fix 89)i3V>* to enoillirn nBoixis c rh \o i&ils nov 
:t #nrtlDoh^B tri f>9^ofq£ne 9*i£ o^JujoI iusfli 797/9! ion .soiismA 

r |i &a« ^floilfiluqoq o r n>9fi 9'!-:iii9 9dt lo -^hojiiai 9£usl £ adbfcdd 
evfl fW3 ^rtiwoo irA* lo nobflluqoq 9d-J io aoittoq £ J?by oe 
slolftr ad* lo xroifcto^oiq 9«ri» erfj Jon btaofld ^ifw lOxofrlashgB 
9if*ToriMjM £ 9i9ii ±i vd ->vil oi oldfi 9d ^nofoo guff lo aortjjujqoq 
,^ili*i9l riou^ lo ai 99nboiq eidi '\o itoijioq rpretsew oili lo basl 
£ H9T9 baB t q99daB niiijfiififfl iliw *i oisia i&ott&i gii ai i^to Jed* 
t igjiod donrn oid bluods I saslnoo I iud : o'iob odi oi ^DoIIud 
« .(»«) .w« «2 8«i««»n««n biul rfoaa lo *»« rf»* «* 

CHAPTER XII. 

•9X> itfi TO U?in^ 8901890 1 n lo 

.ooostfoJ bflvG 9viio edi Lire omv dib 'io jlij-xj^ o* io/x a/oijqho* 
nobvnbortq «ho ai 9?9riJ .yHuriobnovf 9i9d ovhifo fcfuow dsidw 

PROSPECTS FOR RELIGION AND EDUCATION IN PHILLIPSLANP, 

>£9T2 9dJ lo tuio fmol boii9q iojiJaih on ir* ili r? £n :f: I 

I had intended to have included in this volume a 
chapter on the Protectorate of the Aborigines in Phil- 
lipsland ; but the goodly size to which it has already 
and rather unexpectedly attained, and the delay which 
has been occasioned in its publication by "a strike 
among the printers" in Edinburgh, have induced me to 
forego that intention ; especially as I shall have an 
opportunity, in another work, which is now in the 
press, of descanting at considerable length on the origin, 
manners, and customs, as well as on the condition and 
prospects of the Aborigines of Australia generally.* 
Suffice it to say, however, that, with the exception of 
Gippsland, where, in consequence of unprovoked out- 
rage on the one hand, followed by savage retaliation on 
the other, there is at present no intercourse but that of 
hostility between the Whites and the Blacks, the rela- 
tions of the two races throughout the territory are now 
in great measure of a peaceful and friendly character. 
The influence and exertions of Mr. Assistant Protector 
Parker, in the north-western portion of the territory, 



* Cooksland ; or the Northern Division of the Colony of New- 
South Wales : its characteristics and capabilities, as a highly eli- 
gible field for European Colonization. With a Disquisition on 
the Origin, Manners, and Customs of the Aborigines. 



414 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



have, I am happy to state, been eminently conducive 
to this most desirable result. 

The three principal religious denominations through- 
out the province are the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, 
and the Roman Catholic. Of the masters or employers 
of labour generally, eighty-five per cent, are from 
England and Scotland ; the larger number of that pro- 
portion, including a decided preponderance of the 
Squatting interest, being from Scotland : the remaining 
fifteen per cent, are from the Sister-island. It has been 
estimated, however, that of the class of servants or 
labourers, as large a proportion as sixty per cent, are 
from Ireland ; the remainder, consisting of twenty-five 
per cent., from Scotland, and only fifteen from England. 
This estimate, taken in connexion with the fact that 
the Irish Protestants, included respectively in the pro- 
portions of fifteen per cent, of the higher and sixty per 
cent, of the humbler classes, are pretty equally divided 
into Episcopalians and Presbyterians, will enable the 
intelligent reader to form a tolerably correct idea of 
the relative proportions of the three denominations 
throughout the province. In the town of Melbourne 
there are also congregations of the Independent, Bap- 
tist, and Methodist communions ; and I have had 
occasion, when treating of Geelong and its vicinity, 
to mention a Methodist congregation in that locality ; 
but these three classes of English Dissenters, being all 
for the most part proselytizing communions, depending 
alike for their existence and extension on the inade- 
quacy or the inefficiency of clerical ministrations else- 
where, are confined exclusively to the towns. 

There have hitherto been only three ministers of 
the Episcopalian communion in the province — one in 
Melbourne, one in Geelong, and one at Portland. As 
yet there has been comparatively little of the Pusey- 
ite tendencies of Colonial Episcopacy exhibited in Phil- 
lipsland, probably from the ivant of a Bishop in the province; 
but as that Right Hon. English Puseyite, of Scotch 
Presbyterian descent, Mr. Ex-Secretary Gladstone, — 
of whom, I was most happy to find, on my arrival at 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION IN PHILLIP SLAND. 415 



Pernambuco, on my voyage to England, that the Aus- 
tralian Colonies had been safely delivered* — set himself, 
during his brief tenure of office, to supply this great 
deficiency, and accordingly appointed a Protestant 
bishop for Melbourne ; there is reason to believe that 
Episcopacy in Phillipsland will henceforth exhibit the 
same rapid progress towards downright Romanism as 
it exhibits already, under direct Episcopal influence, in 
New South Wales, New Zealand, and Yan Dieman's 
Land. It is possible, indeed, that the Protestant bishop 



* During this gentleman's brief period of office, he gave the 
public sanction of Government to one of the basest practices of 
the Australian Colonies — I mean, that of transmitting to England 
clandestine, and perhaps anonymous charges against individuals 
occupying a prominent place in society — by recalling Sir Eardley 
Wilinot, the Governor of Van Dieman's Land, on the ground of 
certain vague and indefinite rumours against his personal cha- 
racter and conduct, which there was no body to substantiate, even 
with the prima facie evidence of his name ! What a premium and 
encouragement will not such procedure afford for this peculiar 
form of Colonial baseness, which I may inform the reader, in pass- 
ing, has sometimes a clerical, as well as a political, origin and 
object, as I have repeatedly experienced myself ! Why, it will 
transform Downing Street into a perfect harbour for Colonial 
informers and assassins ! 

Mr. Gladstone endeavoured also, although in a somewhat insi- 
dious manner, during his brief tenure of office, to transform New 
South Wales once more into a Convict Colony, by making it 
again the chosen receptacle for British and Irish felons, in the 
face of the solemn pledge of Her Majesty's Government, five or 
six years before, that Transportation to that Colony should then 
cease and determine. To the credit of the Colony, the idea was 
scouted with the utmost indignation by the great bulk of the 
people, including men of all ranks and conditions throughout the 
Territory. It is peculiarly instructive, however, as a confirmation 
of certain statements I have made in a previous chapter, that Mr. 
Gladstone's proposal to revive Transportation to New South 
Wales, was received with perfect rapture by the whole Squatting 
Interest in the Legislative Council, or in other words, by the vir- 
tual Representatives of all the sheep and horned cattle beyond 
the boundaries ! The Whig Ministry, therefore, just got in in 
time to save the Australian Colonies ; which, I repeat it, have had 
much reason to felicitate themselves in being safely del ire red of 
Mr. Gladstone, notwithstanding the spurious piety of the Right 
Honourable gentleman in appointing a bishop for Phillipsland, and 
an additional one for New South Wales Proper. 



416 



PRILLIPSLAND. 



of Melbourne may not be a facsimile of his Prelatic 
neighbours in the three colonies I have enumerated — 
it is possible that he may prove an exception to the 
general rule of his order in the colonies by not combin- 
ing in his own person the assumption and the pride of 
Lucifer with the superstition and intolerance of Rome 
■ — but I am sorry to say the precedents and the proba- 
bilities of the case are all decidedly against so very 
charitable a supposition.* 



* The following specimens of Colonial Prelacy, in the three 
colonies to which I have referred, will enable the reader to judge 
of its peculiar character and tendencies : — 

Bishop Broughton, of New South Wales, therefore, very re- 
cently informed a gentleman in that colony — who had been apply- 
ing for the settlement of an Episcopalian minister in his district, 
and had given the bishop to understand, that if he did not send 
them an Episcopalian, he would invite a Presbyterian minister to 
the district — that the ministrations of a Presbyterian minister 
were of no more efficacy or value than those of a layman ; mean- 
ing, of course, that there is an inherent virtue and efficacy in the 
mere opus operatum when performed by an Episcopalian minis- 
ter, which, I humbly conceive, is the very essence of Popery. 
The same " chief pastor" of a grossly deluded flock, also inform- 
ed Hannibal Macarthur, Esq., Member of Council for the town 
of Parramatta, that in having presided at a W esleyan meeting 
in that town, he had done something which would hang heavy 
upon him, or which he would deeply regret, on his death-bed. 
That there might be no doubt, however, as to the direction in 
which he was coursing himself, the same " leader of the" Colo- 
nial * blind" dated a Trumpery Protest, which he put forth 
against the alleged assumptions and usurpations of the Romish 
Archbishop, Dr. Polding, but in which, moreover, he acknow- 
ledged the Pope to be a true bishop within his own proper dio- 
cese of Rome, — " on the Festival of the Annunciation of the 
Blessed Virgin Mary, in the Church of St. James the Apostle, in 
Sydney !" 

Of the Luciferian pride of Bishop Nixon of Van Dieman's 
Land, the second of the three brothers, it will be sufficient to 
offer a single example. There was a " Prayer for the Gover- 
nor" in use among the Episcopal clergy of the island for upwards 
of twenty-five years or thereby. It had been composed Jby the 
principal Chaplain of the Settlement at the time, and was head- 
ed,]" To be read after the Prayer for the King or Queen and the 
Royal Family." As a second edition of this prayer, however, 
which was out of print, was required for the supply of the New 
Stations, Bishop Nixon altered and corrected a copy of the first 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION IN PHILLIPSLAND. 417 

There have hitherto been three, or at the utmost 
four Romish priests in tbe province of Phillipsland, of 
whom the one stationed at Melbourne — Dr. Geoghegan, 
an able and accomplished, but ambitious and unscru- 
pulous man, pretty much like Dr. M'Hale in Ireland — 
has just demitted his charge, to come home, as it is 
said, to be ordained a bishop. 

Of the four Presbyterian ministers in connexion with 
the Synod of Australia in the province, only one has 
deemed it expedient to follow the example of the Free 
Church ; but as even that solitary one had taken three 
full years to arrive at this conclusion, and as his final 
resolution was not taken till the General Assembly of 
the Free Church of Scotland had publicly pledged it- 
self to support those ministers who held its principles 
in Australia, the moral effect of the tardy resolution, 
which required such prompting to bring it out into ac- 
tion, was completely neutralized. But as two other 
Presbyterian ministers from Scotland sailed for Mel- 
bourne in the month of August last, to organize a 
Presbyterian Church in the province on the broad ba- 
sis of the Westminster Confession of Faith and no 
connexion with the State, there is reason to believe 
that something like vigour and vitality will at length 
be infused into this effete and lifeless communion. 

From the view I have thus given of the constitution 
of society in the province, as well as of the different 
religious communities into which the inhabitants gene- 



edition, as a model for the printer, by obliterating the words " the 
King or Queen and the Royal Family," and substituting " the 
Bishop and his clergy thereby directing that the Represen- 
tative of the Sovereign should not be prayed for till after the 
prayer for the Bishop and his Clergy ! It was truly an edifying 
exhibition of Episcopal humility ! 

It is needless to step across to New Zealand, where Archbishop 
Laud is held forth by Bishop Selwyn's own mouth-piece or chap- 
lain as the beau ideal of a Christian minister, and where the 
Bishop himself, who would scornfully repudiate the idea of allow- 
ing a Presbyterian or Methodist teacher of religion to be consi- 
dered a minister at all, most reverently styles the Romish Mass- 
House at Kororareka, " The House of God." 

2 D 



418 PIHLLIPSLAXD. 



rally are, at least nominally, divided, it will be evident 
that, with the exception of the disturbing element from 
Tipperary— which the gross mismanagement of Sir 
George Gipps has left as a bitter inheritance to the 
land— the prospect for the cause of civil and religious 
liberty is. incomparably, more favourable in Phillips- 
land than In Xew "South; TTales. The Three Denomma- 
fions are there much more equally matched,: and the 
English Dissenting influence much stronger, compara- 
tively, than in the older colony ; and as the Right 
Hon. Earl Grey is now pledged to extend British In- 
stitutions to the Australian Colonies, but in no way 
pledged to the extension of the existing abuses of cer- 
tain of these colonies to Phillipsland, the friends of 
freedom, both in politics and in religion, have a noble 
prospect before them in that province, on its contem- 
plated erection into a separate and independent Co- 
fen^fc bfiB il-yiudo 9ftJ ie 9O0J5a9Jai,&rn sdl io\ e^i&do edl raerfi la 
The simultaneous pressure of four or five contempo- 
raneous Religious Establishments on the ordinary re- 
venues of the pastoral Colonies of Australia — of which 
the population must necessarily be much more widely 
dispersed than that of the densely located agricultural 
and manufacturing districts of Great Britain and Ire- 
land — has/already been found to be absolutely enor- 
mous in proportion to the whole revenue and expendi- 
ture of these Colonies. In a letter addressed to the Se- 
cretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gos- 
pel, by the Right Hon. H. Labouchere, the present Se- 
cretary for Ireland, of date Downing Street August 26. 
1839, the period when the Marquis of Normanby was 
Secretary of State for the Colonies, it is stated, that 
;> the demands made on the revenues of the Australian Co- 
br the maintenance of the Religious Establishments 
are now so great that there is reason to 'apprehend a serious 
deficiency : and so long as these revenues shall continue 
in their present state, it will not be in the power of 
Her Majesty's Government to augment the existing 
Establishments, nor can they pledge themselves to 

ftetfri^b jaoei bluodc /lerijifii tiossi isifesisrf \sm oj±w 5a HEsr> 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION IN PHILLIP SL AND . 419 



maintain them in their present strength, by supplying 
all such vacancies as may hereafter occur." 

And on the Blst December of the same year, when 
Lord jNormanby and Mr. Labouchere had been re- 
placed by Lord John Russell and Mr. H. Vernon Smith, 
M.P., a letter, of which the following is an extract, was 
addressed respectively by the latter gentleman, acting 
under the direction of Lord John Russell, " To the So- 
ciety for the Propagation of the Gospel, and to the 
Committee of the General Assembly of the Church of 
Scotland on Colonial Churches, relative to the future 
maintenance of the Church and School Establishments 

in New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land r — • 
\o sbae'di edi pii&l&qrthsH. ol 89inoloo emdi 20 am 
His Lordship thinks it right to take this opportunity of com- 
municating to you, that having recently had under his consider- 
ation the annual returns of the revenue and expenditure of the 
colonies, he has observed the very large proportions which in each 
of them the charge for the maintenance of the church and school 
establishments hears to the gross amount of that revenue. His 
Lordship has not been able to contemplate, without anxiety, the 
possible effect which at some future, and perhaps not very re- 
mote time, may result from the comparative magnitude of this 
charge, especially to the interests of persons who may leave this 
country to undertake the charge of congregations in Australia. 
Deeply as Her Majesty's Government are impressed with the un- 
rivalled importance of the objects to which this branch of the 
public expenditure is devoted, and cordially as at present the lo- 
cal authorities concur in that opinion, it must yet be remember- 
ed, that the revenue from which alone the salaries of the minis* 
ters of religion, and teachers of the public schools can be derived, 
is fluctuating in amount, and is scarcely capable of increase by 
any new imposts. It must further be remembered, that to the local 
Legislature, even as now constituted, the control and appropriation 
of this revenue exclusively belongs,and that tJie same powers must ne- 
cessarily be confided to any other local Legislatures, which may here- 
after be established oil any new basis, more consonant with the changes 
so rapidly taking place in the composition of the local societies. His 
Lordship considers it due to the proper consideration of the inte- 
rests of those exemplary persons who are now devoting themselves 
to the cause of religious instruction in these remote colonies, to 
make them aware that they will look for future support to the com- 
munity among ivlvo-m they are preparing to spread these inestimable 
advantages, rather than to any pledge from the nwther-country. It 
is, therefore, of great importance, that all clergymen and school- 
masters at New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, and espe- 
cially all who may hereafter resort thither, should most distinctly 



420 



PHILLIPSLAND. 



understand that the continuance of their stipends cannot be abso- 
lutely guaranteed to them by Her Majesty' *s Government, icho can 
be responsible only for the escertise of the legitimate authority and 
influence of the Crown with the Local Legislate res, for pre venting 
any departure from the principles already sanctioned by those Le- 
gislatures on this subject, Lord John- Russell earnestly hopes, 
that the resources of these colonies may continue to he adequate 
to this charge, and that the disposition to sustain it will undergo 
no change. Should, however, the event pro ye unfortunately 
otherwise, it must be clearly understood, that Her Majesty's Go- 
vernment could not he responsible for making good the deficiency 
beyond the guarantee which existing interests might .fairly ask 5 
in changing the Legislative body. 

It is evident, therefore, that Her Majesty's present- 
Government can never consistently re-affirm the unjust 
and despotic principle and practice introduced under 
the Constitutional Act of Lord Stanley, by employing 
the authority of the Imperial Parliament to seize upon 
a large portion of the Colonial Revenues, and to distri- 
bute it at the pleasure of the Local Executive for the 
support of religion, without the concurrence or consent 
of the Local Legislature. It is distinctly acknowledged 
in the latter of these extracts, that the right either of 
making or of withholding a public provision for the 
support of religion in the Colonies, is vested exclu- 
sively in the Local Legislatures, and that all that the 
Imperial Government can legitimately do, in the event 
of any change in the constitution of these Legislatures, 
is to provide a guarantee for the maintenance of " ex- 
isting interests." For my own pai% I am decidedly of 
opinion that no minister of religion, who has been in 
the receipt of a Government salary in the Austra- 
lian Colonies for upwards of seven years^ should be un- 
derstood to have a vested right in the continuance of 
that salary for a single year, in the event of the Local 
Legislature declining to make any future provision for 
the support of religion from the Public Treasury ; and 
I would insist, as a measure of justice to the whole 
community, that in every instance, as soon as the pe- 
riod of seven years from the first payment of any minis- 
ter's Colonial Government Salary should have elapsed, 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION IN PHILLIPSLAND. 421 

the payment of that salary should cease and deter- 
mine. 

Under the present Constitutional Act of the Imperial 
Parliament, which binds up the province of Phillipsland 
in the same colony with New South Wales, there is 
£30,000 a-year of the Public Revenue appropriated, 
without the consent or concurrence of the people, for 
the support of religion; and the different denominations 
among whom this amount is now divided, under the 
authority of the Colonial Executive, consist of Episco- 
palians, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, Methodists, 
and Jews, who are henceforth to be regarded as con- 
stituting the five Established Churches of the Colony, 
Xow, I have no hesitation in expressing it as my de- 
cided opinion, that it is absolutely disgraceful for any 
man pretending to derive his religion from the Word 
of Gk>cl, to have any thing to do with so monstrous a 
system of avowed iatitudinarianism — of legalized in- 
fidelity. For whatever any man's opinion may be as 
to the Establishment principle- — that is, as to whether 
it is or is not the duty of the State to support the truth 
in matters of religion — %reiy no candid person will 
refuse to admit that such a system as this must be 
whollyand solely evil. Under this conviction, I resigned 
my own liberal salary, as the Senior Presbyterian mi- 
nister of the colony, early in the year 1812, fifteen 
months before the Disruption of the Church of Scot- 
land ; and I have no hesitation in acknowledging, that 
it is one of the objects of my present visit to Europe, 
to procure a suitable supply of ministers of that com- 
munion for the Colony at large, to carry out this prin- 
ciple in the organization and management of their 
Church — asking nothing from the State. 

There is certainly no portion of Her Majesty's sub- 
jects who would either be more able on the one hand, 
or more willing on the other, to support the ordinances 
of religion to the full extent required in the country, 
than the people of Phillipsland : and as there is no 
reason to believe that Earl Grey will follow the bad 
example of his predecessor, Lord Stanley, by insisting 



422 



PHILLIPSLAKD. 



on a Parliamentary Reserve for the support of religion 
in the province, and thereby committing a serious out- 
rage upon the best feelings of the people, while there 
is every reason to believe that his Lordship will, on 
the contrary, leave this and all other matters of mere 
internal arrangement in the hands of the Local Legis- 
lature, there is decidedly the fairest prospect, and the 
noblest rally in g-point imaginable for the friends of 
civil and religious liberty in that portion of Her Ma- 
jesty's dominions. For, only remove the present fruit- 
ful source of disunion and disturbance, as well as of 
inefficiency and irreligion— a State provision for four or 
five contemporaneous established churches— and let 
these churches be left entirely to the sympathies of 
their respective adherents, and I am confident that re- 
ligion, in its Scriptural meaning, and in its best and 
purest forms, would u have free course and be giori- 
ned^4ntaMaM.^acf (tenni nsbnoi sdl iad ; bnnorg 

The continuance of such a provision for the clergy 
of all eommunions as the present politic o~ec6lesiastical 
system of the Australian Colonies implies, will not only 
exert a depressing and deadening influence on the 
cause of morals and religion in the Colony of Phillips- 
land, but will infallibly proye the greatest possible ob- 
stacle to the general education of the people. That 
this grand object of public interest cannot be accom- 
plished under the existing denominational system of 
the Colony of New South Wales, has already been 
abundantly proved by the bitter experience of the past. 
And if the people of Phillipsland are really desirous 
that the interests of education in that noble province 
should not be rendered completely subservient in future 
to the most palpable schemes of clerical ambition and 
usurpation, they will endeavour by all means to take 
the stings out of the tails of the clergy, in the first in- 
stance, by simply leaving them- — all eommunions alike 
without exception — to the sympathies and exertions of 
their people. There would in that case— and I speak 
from what I saw with my own eyes in not fewer than 
eleven of the United States, in the year 1840 — be very 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION JN PHILLIPSLAND. 423 



little quarrelling among the clergy of the different 
churches about the general education of the people. 
The education of the people would then be under the 
management and control of their own Representatives, 
and the present colonial system of wasteful expenditure 
and lamentable inefficiency — -under which the denomi- 
national schoolmaster is the mere creature of the de- 
nominational clergyman, and therefore unqualified to 
instil into others those feelings of British freedom and 
manly independence of which he is utterly unconscious 
himself— would be succeeded by a system of watchful 
economy and vigilant superintendence, under which 

rithej'scliooimaster would be elevated to his proper level 
in society as one of the most important of the function- 

-^ifcSffrf ife B&t&m s I baa fiiae-iodba eihoeqcsi iiedt 

I am well aware that in touching on this subject I 
am treading, especially at present, on very delicate 
ground; but the reader must bear in mind that the 
question of General Education has quite a different as- 
pect in Australia from what it has in England. In- so 
thinly peopled a country as the Land of the Squatters, 
the Denominational System is utterly impracticable. 
The people are sensible of this themselves, and would 

= therefore gladly co-operate for the establishment of a 
General System, if the matter were only left to them- 

- selves. In fact, the only opponents of such a system 
are the clergy of the live established ehurches of the 
colony — the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Roman 
Catholic, the Methodist, arid the Jewish; for the reader 
must recollect that Christianity is not now the only 
religion which has been taken under the wide-spread 
wing of Australian Colonial liberality. On the contrary, 
we have endowed the Law as well as the Gospel.; and 
as there are gentlemen in the colony who are ever and 
anon advocating the introduc tion of Malays and Coolies, 
I expect that in a few years hence (if this monstrous 
system is, not put an end to in the^ meantime by an in- 
telligent and light-minded people) we shall have justice 
done by our Colonial Legislature to Mahomet and 
Vishnoo, as well as to Moses and Aaron. : 



424 



PHILLIPSLAXD. 



To conclude : the facilities which the province of 
Phillipsland presents at this moment for the settlement 
of a higher class of emigrants from the mother-country, 
— with a labouring agricultural population, to be carried 
out from the fund arising from the sales of land, and to 
be settled around them for the cultivation of the soil — 
are decidedly such as have never been surpassed in the 
past history of British colonization ; and the reproduc- 
tion of the frame- work of European civilization, with its 
schools, and churches, and colleges, its moral restraints 
and its multifarious institutions, would, under such an 
arrangement as I have suggested above, be of the easiest 
possible accomplishment. In one word, " it is a good 
land" which I have been describing in the preceding 
pages ; and if I can at all interpret the signs of the 
times, I would add, for the special encouragement of 
the friends of civil and religious liberty both at home 
and abroad, " the Lord oar God hath said, He icill give 
it us" 



FTN I S. 



H5 9*>fir/0 4 IO| 9dt doidw SSIdillOBI 9ii-J • 913**1 JHV"J 

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tefeftaadt'io ed ,9toob bsjss'ggua 97£n 1 &b ,ja9ffl9^fiBx e u 
boo^ ft & " c b r iow oao nl .insmaaixqmoooB 9icioa<X| 
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fO 4^£lI9'gB'llJ09a9 lBr-j9q<s 9flT xOl ^jDh.Jiliua ^ ' 

s&Mid 3as dtod -^frsdil aijorgual bin? Irm *o abnsra 9fU 



APPENDIX 



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to £ 
o 

Hi 



APPENDIX B. 



RETURN of Depasturing Licenses issued (up to the 26'th 
May 1846) in the several Districts beyond the Boundaries of 
Location, in the Port Phillip District, for the Year ending 
30th June 1846, with the Amount paid for each License. 



WESTERN POET.. 



Aitken, John 


£21 




Do. . 


10 




Aitken. John C. 


10 


0 


Allan. Robert Innes 


10 


(T 


Airey, Georse S. 


12 10 


Anderson, James 


10 


0 


Aitken, John 


10 


o 


Abbott & M ; Connell . 


5 


0 


Ayrey & Co. 


5 


0 


Brain Ac Williams 


10 


0 


Broadhurst Ab Tootal 


10 


0 


Bells & Buchanan 


32 


10 


Beanchamp. Robert 


10 


0 


Bear 6z Dunsford 


10 


0 


Bear, John 


10 


0 


Bear & Godfrey 


10 




Bamblett, William 


10 




Bennett, H. G. 


22 


10 


Bathe, James 


10 


0 


Bakewell & Shaw 


10 




Birch, A. & C, 


10 




Broadhurst & King, 


10 




Bueknall, E. G. 


10 


0 


Bailey, Watson, & Wight . 


12 10 


Bourke & Neville 


10 


0 


Baynton, Thomas 


17 


10 




Baxter, Benjamin 


10 


o 


Bro :ke. John . . 


10 


o 


Bogle & M'Kean . 


10 


o 


Briarty, Robert 


in 


0 


Barker, William . 


10 


0 


Barker. John 




0 


Do. . . . 


10 


Q 


Brodie, Messrs. 


12 10 


Brock & Hunter 


10 


o 




Do. . 


10 


o 


Brock. John 


35 


0 


Bacchus. W. H. 


12 


10 


Barnett & Compton 


in 


o 


Beath, D. A. . 




o 


Booth &■ Argvle 


10 


o 


Birch, A. & C. . 


10 


0 


Bazeley. Robert 


5 


0 


Barrv. James 


5 


0 


Balcbinre, A. B. 


5 


0 


Brock, Henry 


10 


0 


Brock, Henry and Thomas . 


5 


o- 



Beauchamp. Robert . . £5 V 

Bailev, Richard . . 10 0 

Boyd.' John 10 (J 

Chenerv & Goodman . 10 0 

Collver: J. W. . . 10 " 

Clowes. Brothers . . 10 0 

Coahill, David . . In 0 

Cuthbert & Gardner . . 10 0 

Do. . 10 0 

Caldwell & Ross . . in | 

Curr. Edward . . 20 0 

Clarke, John . . 10 0 

Coutts. George . . 10 0 

Campbell, James . . 10 O 

Creswicke. Charles ~~ . . 10 0 

Creswicke, J. and H. . . 10 0 

Curlewis & Campbell . 27 10 

Do. . 27 10 

Clow. Rev. James - . . 10 0 

Carpenter & Babington . 10 0 

Cat to, John . . . 1(» 0 

Cowper. James . . 12 10 

Do. . . 10 0 

Cain. James . . . 12 10 

Do. ... 10 0 

Cunningham, R. T. . . 20 

Crewe, John . . . 10 0 

Cameron. Donald - lu 0 

De. 17 10 

Cotton. Edward " . . 10 0 

Coghillj William . . -17 W 

Canmnghanre &: Buchanan . 11 0 

Cruikshank. Andrew R. . 10 0 

Clarke. W. J. T. . . 37 1" 

Do. . . In 0 

Do. . 10 O 

Cav & Kave . ... 12 10 

Cotton, John . . . 12 10 

Campbell, A. M. . b • 10 0 

Curren <k Nicholas . . 10 0 

Cameron. J. Allan . . 17 10 

Campbell, A. S. G. . . 5 0 

Cook, Henry and John . 5 t> 

Cotton, John . . 5 0 

Cleave, William . : . 5 0 

Collyer, J. and W. . . 5 0 

Cain, James . . _ T. 10 0 

; Clarke, W. J. T. . 5 0 

Curlewis, G. C. . c 10 0 



MO 



APPENDIX B. 



Cockayne, Edwin . . £10 0 Jennings, Daniel . . £27 10 

Cameron & Martin . . 10 0 Irvine, Alexander . 25 0 

Cain, Owen . . . 10 0 Jardine, Joseph . . 10 0 

Clarke, Reay . . . 10 0 Johnson, Henry . . 10 0 

Dickson, John ... 10 0 Kins. Mr. , . 10 0 

Drvden, Edward . . 12 10 Keith, William . . 10 0 

Devine, William . . 10 0 , Kilburn, D. T. 10 0 

Dore & Hennessy . . 10 0; Kennedy, Alexander . . 10 0 

Davis, Henry 10 0 Do. . 5 0 

Davidson, Alexander . . 10 0 Kirk & Harlin . 5 0 

Donalds & Hamilton . . 10 0 ' Lawrence, J. R, . . 10 0 

Do. .5 0 : Langdon, F. W. . 10 0 

Donnithorne, James . . 27 10 i Leek ey, James . . 10 0 

Devine, John ... 10 0 : Lyons," Michael . . 10 0 

Dean, Charles ... 10 O M'Laren, Cunningham . 10 0 

Evans, George . . . 10 0! M'Lachlan, Charles . . 20 0 

Elliott, G. W. ... 10 0 M 'Samara, Michael . 10 0 

Lasev. William . . . 12 10 M'Lean, Alexander . . 10 0 

'Do. ... 10 0 ! M'Lachlan, Dugald . . 10 0 

Egan, James . . . 10 0 MNeill & Hall' . . 12 10 

Ellis & Shore . . . 10 0 M'Bain, Donald . . 10 0 

Eagle, George B. . . 10 0 Mitchell, W. F. . . 35 0 

Edgell, John . . . 11 0 1 M'Haflie. W. and J. . 10 0 

Do. ... 10 0 M Millan, Archibald . . 10 0 

Ewart & Lithgow . . 10 0 Meyrick, A. and H. . . 10 0 

Edey, Catherine . . 10 0 Do. . . 10 0 

Ford, James . . . 10 0 Murcheson, John . . 10 0 

Fisher, J. M. ... 10 0 M'Kenzie, Alexander r 10 0 

Fletcher, Dugald . . 10 0 M'Callum, Alexander . 37 10 

Folev & Cameron 10 0 ! Do. 10 0 

Fulton, James . . 10 0 Minton. Jane . . . 10 0 

Forsvth, Robert . . 10 0 M'Kinnon, Colin . . 12 10 

Fawkner, J. P. . . 5 0 Mundv. F. M. ... 10 0 

Green, Mrs. Ann . . 10 0 j Manton, Charles . . 10 0 

Gavin, Emily 10 0 1 Do. 10 0 

Goodman & Chenery . . 12 10 ' Martin, Frederick . . 10 0 

Graham & Rvrie . . 10 0 Mackenzie, Roderick . . 10 0 

Grav, Robert" . . 10 0 1 Mollison, Alexander F. . 15 0 

Gardiner & Fletcher 12 10 i Do. 30 0 

Gibbon, T. A. . . 10 0 | Miller & M'Farlane . . 10 o 

Hodykinson, James . . 10 0 Mathew & Bett . . 10 0 

Heffernan, William . . 10 0 MCrae, A. M. . 10 0 

Hamilton, William . . 30 0 M-Donnell & Smith . . 10 0 

Heape & Grice . . 15 0 M "Arthur, D. C. . 10 0 

Hunter, James P. . . 10 0 Matson, Henry . . 10 0 

Howey & Patterson . . 10 0 ' Moor & Martin . . 17 10 

Hepburn, John . . 35 0 : Malane & Co. . . 5 0 

Harrison, John . . 10 0 M'Millan, John . . 10 0 

Headlam, William and John 10 0 Macdousal, A. C. . . 10 0 

Do. 10 0 M-Kenzie, Roderick . 5 0 

Kenrv, Robert . . 10 0 Murchinash. Messrs. . . 5 0 

Hardie, D. and H. . 10 0 Mitchell, W. F. 10 0 

Hawdon, Joseph . . 17 10 M'Naughton, Alexander . 5 0 

Hunter, W.M. . . 15 0 Do. ..50 

Do. 5 0 Norton, Charles . 10 0 

Horsfall, James . . 10 0 Newson, George . . 12 0 

Hill, John S. 10 0 Nicholson & Myers . . 10 0 

Harpur, William . . 10 0 Orr. James . . . 15 0 

Hill, Thomas . . . 10 0 Do. ... 10 0 

Honitson. John ... 50 Oranne, A. T. ... 10 0 

Hughes, John . . . 10 0 O'Connor. Terence . . 10 0 

Hawkings, Samuel . . 10 0 O'Dea, John . . 10 0 

Innes, D. N. and A. . 10 0 Ogilbv, R. E. ..100 

Do. . . 10 0 O'Connor & Haves . . 10 0 

Jamieson, W. K. 10 0 Patterson, Robert . . 10 0 

Jeffreys, Brothers . . 14 0 Pyke, .Messrs. . . 10 0 

Jackson, S. and W. . 12 0 P'edder, Sir John L. . 10 0 

Jovce, George . . . 10 0 Pvke, T. & H. . . 10 0 

Jones, H. and D. . 10 0 Payne, John . . 10 0 



I 



APPENDIX B. 



441 



Peters, Charles . .£10 0 Williams & Wheatley . £5 0 

Pattison, William . . 10 0 Whitehead, Robert . 5 0 

Piper, William . . 10 0 Watson, Elizabeth . 5 0 

Polhman, R. and F. . 11 0 Young, Peter . 10 0 

Pettett, W. H. 10 0 Do. . ... 10 0 

Power, David ] . 10 0 : 

Payne, William . . 5 0 Total, £3492 0 



v^uciirv, J. jd. . . IU U 

Ruffy, H. and A. W. . . 10 0 A run dell, Hunter . . £10 0 

Riddell & Hamilton . . 22 10 Aiisa, Marquis of, and others 95 0 

Rostron, Laurence . . 15 0 Anderson, Joseph . . 27 10 

Do. . . 10 0 Aitken, J. C. . . . 10 0 

Rowan, James Hutton . 12 10 Alston, Mrs. J. . . . 10 0 

Reedy & Hook . . 10 0 Allan, John ... 50 

Raleigh, Joseph 10 0 Andrews, Joseph . 5 0 

Ryrie, W. & D. . . 37 10 ; Alexander and Redfern . 10 0 

Ruffy, Frederick . . 10 0 Boyd, Benjamin . . 32 10 

Rutherford, George . . 10 0 Binny and Anderson . . 10 0 

Rutherford & Blackmore . 10 0 Burnett, C. J. 10 0 

Reid, James . . . 10 0 Barber, William Gr. . 15 0 

Robertson, J. and H. . . 10 0 Brock, John . . . 12 10 

Robertson, William . 10 0 Broughton, J. A. . 11 0 

Rourke, H. and H. . . 10 0 Bond, Thomas . . . 10 0 

Robertson, James . .50 Black and M'Kellor . . 30 0 

Scobie, F. M. . . 15 0 Brown, Thomas . 10 0 

Sinclair. John . . 15 0 Bowman, William . . 22 10 

Smith, William . . 10 0 Bould, Joseph ... 10 0 

Smith, George . . 10 0 Buckland, John . . 10 0 

Smythe, H. W. H. , . 10 0 Barber, G. Hume . . 17 10 

Simson, Jane C. . , 32 10 Barber, Benjamin . . 10 0 

Steiglitz, John Von . . 10 0 Broadfoot and Reid . . 10 0 

Starvell, William . . 22 10 : Brown and Clarke . . 15 0 

Sullivan, Daniel . . . 10 0 Barnes and Holland . . 22 10 

Sutherland, Joseph . . 12 10 Bury, F. John ... 10 0 

Sim, Alexander . . . 15 0 Baker, W. F. . . . 10 0 

Steel, Michael . . . 10 0 Buckland, John . . 10 u 

Spackman, C. F. . . . 10 0 Burnett, Charles . 5 0 

Sylvester & Smyth . . 10 0 Brock, John ... 50 

Stratton, J. A. . . . 10 0 Cheyne and Gibb . . 10 0 

Sergeanston, A. . . 10 0 Champion. William . . 10 0 

Stewart, Andrew . . . 10 0 Cropper, Charles . . 10 0 

Stevenson, H. and P. 5 0 Creighton, W. H. . . 10 0 

Do 5 0 Campbell, J. H. 10 U 

Shanahan, Martin . . 10 0 ' Curlewis, G. C. . . 10 0 

Stevenson, Joseph . . 10 0 Chisholm, J. W. . . 45 0 

Skelton, Edward . . . 10 0 Cri>p and Foord, . . 10 0 

Stokes, George J. . 10 0 Clifton, Messrs. . . . 10 0 

Thear, Joseph ... 10 0 Chapman, Thomas . . 10 0 

Thorn & Pender . . . 10 0 Clark, William . . . 10 0 

Thorpe, Abel . . . 10 0 Clark, John . . . 10 0 

Do 10 0 Curlewis and Campbell . 20 0 

Tootal, W. and A. E. . 5 0 Do. . 27 10 

Tucker & Boundy . . 10 0 Cowper, Charles . . 32 10 

Tonks, Richard . . .10 0 Chenery and Goodman . 10 0 

Varcoe, Robert . . . 10 0 Cotton, John . . . 10 0 

Webster. Samuel . . 10 0 . Clarke, Richard . . 10 0 

Walsh, William . . . 10 0 Curlewis, G. C. . . 10 0 

Waterfield and Budd . 10 0 Clarke, Xeil ... 50 

Watt, Ross .... 10 0 Chevne, Alexander . 50 

Watson, Wright, & Phillpotts 10 0 Clark, Thomas ... 50 

White, Robert . . . 10 0 Clarke, Thomas . 5 0 

Wilson & Johnston . . 10 0 Docker, Joseph . . 30 0 

Willoby, William . . 10 0 Davey and Hamilton . . 10 0 

Wedge & Co. . . . 10 0 Dempsev, Mary . 10 0 

Do 10 0 Ebden, C. H. . . . 22 10 

Do. . 10 0 : Faithful, George . 70 0 

Walker, Henry . . . 10 0 Godfrey, Henry . . . 10 0 

Do. . . . 5 0 ; Green, E. B. . 17 1<> 



442 



APPENDIX B. 



Green, E. B. 
Grey, George 
Grey and Gulliver 
Grimes, Edward 
Guise, Mr. R. 
Do. 

Hume, Hamilton 
Huon, Paul 
Handy, Edward 
Hughes, H. K. 
Howe, E. and W. 
Hillas, John 
Heape and Grice 
Hassell, James 
Johnston. Messrs. 
Jobbins, John 
Kirkland, James 
Do. 

Kinshington, George 
Lockhart and M'Kenzie 
Lockhart and Clarke 
Lilburne, William 
Do. 

Long, William 
Marshall, Messrs. 
Morrice and M'Kenzie 
Mitchell, Thomas 
M'Donnell, Alexander 
Mackay, G. E. 
Macdonald, O. 
Miller. John 
M'Leod, D. R. 
Mitchell, W. H. 
Middlemis, Hugh 
Do. 

M'Kenzie, D. 
Morrison, George 
Owen and Mullen 
Osborne, James 
Perrott and Garde 
Purcell, John 
Philpotts, O. 
Parker and Cusworth 
Pin son and Roberts 
Roberts, James 
Reid, Agnes 
Reid, David 
Rae. John R. 
Raleigh, Joseph 
Ryan. Charles 
Rowan, Messrs. 
Do. 

Redfern and Alexander 
Redfern and Alexander 
Read, James 
Reid, David 
Sheppard, Shelburne, 
Shelly, George 
Shelly, William, Estate 
Shelly, R. J. 
Ser]"eantson, A. 
Scobie, F. M. 
Swanston and Grant 
Taylor, Robert 
Thomas, Messrs. 
Turnbull, Thomas 
Thom, Archibald 
Thomson, John C. 
Underwood, T. A. 



£10 


0 


10 


0 


10 


0 


10 


0 


10 


0 


12 




10 


0 


20 


0 


10 


0 


25 


0 


10 


0 


17 


Vj 


10 


0 


10 


0 


37 


10 


27 


1" 


10 


0 


5 


0 


5 


0 


10 


0 


10 


0 


10 


0 


10 


0 


5 


0 


10 


o 


10 


0 


10 


0 


10 


(1 


10 


0 


12 


10 


12 


10 


12 


10 


10 


n 


10 


0 


10 


0 


5 


0 


10 


0 


10 


0 


12 


10 


15 


0 


10 


0 


10 


0 


10 


0 


7 


to 


37 


io 


40 


1) 


10 


0 


10 


0 


10 


0 


11 


0 


10 


d 


10 


0 


12 


10 


10 


0 


10 


0 


5 


0 


10 


0 


25 


0 


12 


1' 


10 


0 


10 


0 


12 


io 


10 


0 


10 


0 


15 


0 


10 


0 


10 


0 


10 


0 


5 


0 



Vidler, John 
Wise, William 
Warby, Benjamin 
Wilson, James 
Wardrope and Clark 
White, H. J. 
Wilson, David 
Webster. J. H. . 
Do. 

Watson, Samuel 
Withers, Jason . 
Watson, S. G. 
Walker & Co. 
Waits, John J. 
Wilson, James 
Young, Robert 



Total, £1984 10 

PORTLAND BAY. 

Australasia, Bank of 
Adams, Robert 
Armytage, George 
Anderson, Henry 
Austin. James " . 
Do. 

Austin. S. and J. 

Allen, J. and W. 

Ayrey. Charles 

Aplin, C. D. and H. 

Allan and Smyth 

Austen, James 
| Adeney, William 

Affleck, William 

Atkinson, Francis 

Addison and Murray 
l Adam, William 
! Black, Philip 
i Bell and Calvert 
| Boyd, Benjamin 
I Beal and Trebeck 

Baxter and Thomson 

Brown. J. and A. 
Do. 
Do. 

Bunburv, R. H. 

Do. 
Blair, James 
Boyd, Benjamin 
Burchett, Messrs. 
Bovd, M'Gill, and Ross 
Bell and Co. 
Brown, James 
Baillie, Lady, and Hamilton 
Bostock, E.'H. . . . 10 0 
Brown, Charles . . 10 0 

Byrne, Michael ... 10 0 
Bell, John . 10 0 

Do. . 10 0 

Baxter, Andrew . . 12 10 

Bradshaw, C. and J. . . 10 0 
Ball, G. P. . 10 0 

Black, Neil, and Co. . . 40 0 

Do. . 27 10 

Best, Thomas . . . 10 0 
Broad bend and Widdup . 10 0 
Bennett, Lawrence . . 10 0 
Buchanan, J. S. . . 12 0 

Brodie, G. S. and R. .12 10 



APPENDIX B. 



Bells and Buchanan 
Brown, Thomas Alexander 
Birmingham and Reilly 
Birmingham, Walter 
Bryce, James 
Carsewell, Robert 
Calvert, John 
Currie and Anderson 
Craig. Donald 
Cole, Messrs. 
Connor and Stonehouse 
Cooper and Thomson 
Corrie and Stead 
Crawford, James, junior 
Crawford, James 
Cox, John, 
Carmichael, "William 
Carmichael. Messrs. 
Cosgrove, James 
Cameron, A. and J. 
Cameron, Angus . 
Corner, J. 
Cornev, W. and F. 
Claridae, George, 
Cameron. Alexander 
Curtain, Patrick . 
Clyde Company 
Cadden, Simon 
Campbell, John 
Curdie, Daniel 
Campbell and M'Rae 
Clarke, Robert 
Cook, CP.. 
Campbell, M' Knight, and Co 
Coghill, George 
Cunningham, A. and F 
Coldham, S. and G. 
Cameron, Donald 
Campbell, A. and C. 
Churnside, J. and A. 
Do. 

Churnside and Co. 
Cay and Kaye 
Clow, James M. 
Clements, John 
Cameron. Donald 
Clarke, W. J. T. . 
Calvert and Bell . 
Clarke. Robert 
Chamberlain, Robert 
Carter, Charles 
Claridge, George 
Duvernav. Frederick 
Downie, *T. W. 
Dennis, Brothers . 
Donalds and Hamilton 
Darlot and Co. 
Do. 

Donaldson, A. 
Dwyer, Henry 
Donaldson, Alexander 
Dickson, James 
De Little, R. and H. 
Duncan and Waldie 
Denistown, A. and J. 
Deacon, Henry 
Dyson, John . 
Ewen, Stephen 
Ewing, William . 



£10 0 

10 0 

10 0 

10 0 



5 

10 
20 



10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
12 10 
25 0 
10 0 
10 0 
32 10 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 o 
10 0 
10 0 
10 o 
22 1<i 
22 P0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 o 
12 10 
10 0 
22 10 
10 0 
15 0 
10 0 
12 10 
27 10 
10 o 
15 0 
10 0 
SO 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
45 0 
12 10 
12 10 
22 10 
5 0 
5 0 
17 10 
15 0 
12 10 
15 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 

10 0 
15 0 
37 10 

11 0 
5 0 

10 0 
10 0 



Eererton, George 
Edsen, David 
Eddington, John . 
Elms and Lang 
Francis, Grosvenor 
Forbes, Alexander 
Fleming and Porter 
French. A. 
Fitzserald, Michael 
Forbes, Georse 
Firebrace, William 
Fairie and Rodger 
Fyans, Foster 
Farrell, John 
Ferrers and Bingley 
Ferrers, Conway 
Gorie and M'Gregor 
Good, John 

Gardner and Aitchison 
Grant, Thomas 
Gibb. Mathew 
Gibb, Henry . 
Gibb and Anderson 
Gray, William 
Goldsmith, A. 
Gibb and Gordon . 
Gibson, J. W, 
Graham and Cobham 
Gregory, Thomas . 
Griffin, Frederick f 
Gibb and Anderson 
Griftin, Joseph 
Gibson. Thomas 
Hawkins, J. P. . 
Hiscock. Thomas . 
Hastie, John 
Highett, John 
Heney and Heney 
Hutchinson and Kidd 
Heape and Grice . 
Henty, Francis 
Henty, Brothers 
Henty, John . 
Hentv. Edward 
Do. 

Hall, Mathew 
Hamilton. William 
Harding, William 
Hardie, Thomas 
Hardie, Peter 
Hovle. Duncan 
Do. 

Hutton, William 
Hamilton and Patterson 
Herbertson, Robert 
Hardie, Peter 
Hunter, Colin 
Hutchinson, George 
Hutton. Charles . 
Hill, D. and T. 
Hamilton, Thomas 
Johnston and Campbell 
Jamieson, R. and W. 
Jackson, James 
Johnston, John 
Inglis, Peter 
Do. 

Kennedy, D. and D. 
Kimbers, John 



443 

£10 0 

10 0 

10 0 

25 0 

10 0 

10 0 

10 0 

10 0 

10 0 

10 0 
17 1<» 
40 0 

11 0 
10 0 
10 0 

5 0 

10 0 

10 0 

20 0 

10 0 

10 0 

10 0 

10 0 

10 0 

22 10 

12 10 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
20 0 
10 0 
22 10 
10 0 
12 10 
57 10 
15 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
20 0 
10 0 
12 10 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 

5 0 
10 0 
5 0 
5 0 
22 10 
10 0 
10 0 
10 0 
17 10 
15 0 
32 10 
10 0 



444 



APPENDIX B. 



Kidd, John 
Kiernan, Charles 
Kippen, William, junior 
Kittson, James 
Kennedy and M'Clelland 
Kenny, John 
Kerr, Robert 
Kibble, James 
Kennedy, Donald 
Do. 

Kennedy, D. and D. 
Lang, Brothers 
Do. 

Labelliere, C. E. 
Lynott, C. 
Lestrange, Joseph. 
Lloyd, Arthur 
Lews, Richard 
Lemann, Henry 
Linton, Mary 
Learmonth, John 
Learmonth, J. and S. 
Lonsdale, William 
Learmonth, William 
Lockhart, G. D. . 
Love, Andrew 
Lynch, Patrick 
M'Rae, Duncan 
Meickle, George 
Moore and Griffiths 
Mercer, George 
M'Millan and Wilson 
Mackay, John 
Murray, H. and A. 
Morris, Henry 
Macpherson, William 
Macpherson, John 
Maccredie and Gottreaux 
Macleod, Messrs. 
Maccollack, J. W. 
Millard, William 
M'Kae and Campbell 
M'Kinna and M'Nicholls 
M'lntyre and Sinclair 
M'Kinna and Murchie 
M'Conochie, W. and J. 
Manifold, J. and P. 
M'lntyre, D. 
Macdonald, Messrs. 
Macdonald and M'Kenzie 
M 'Guinness, Patrick 
M'Donald and M'Kenzie 
Muirhead, Robert 
Manning, Brothers 
Mannifold, Thomas 
Murray, T. A. 
Murph'y and Bell 
M'Lary,D. . 
M'Kinnon, L. 
M'Kenzie and M'Lachlan 
M'Arthur, Peter . 
Mailer, Robert 
Marton, Robert 
Miller, Henry 

Do. ... 
Mathers, David 
Mitchell and Selby 
Mills, Charles 
M'Lean and M'Crae 



10 0 

10 0 

10 0 

10 0 




Martin, Robert 
M'Arthur, P. 
Melville and M'Nair 
Nolan, James 
Norris, Thomas 
Nicholson and Higgins 
Owen, Sir John 
Oliphant and Robertson 
O'Neill, Daniel . 
O'Neill, D. . 
Patterson, Robert 
Patterson and Hamilto 
Plummer and Dent 
Pel lean, Arthur . 
Payne, Charles 
Patterson, William 
Do. 

Power, David 
Porter and Fleming 
Richardson and Scott 
Robertson, George 
Robertson, J. G. 
Richardson, Thomas 
Rowe, William 
Russell and Simson 
Robertson and Skene 
Roadknight, William 
Rutherford and Griede 
Russell, William . 
Ritchie, John 
Robertson, W. and J. 
Robertson, William 
Ross, John 
Rose, Alexander . 
Redd, G. F., junior 
Robertson and Boyd 
Riley and Barker 
Ritchie, J. and J. 
Rogerson, G. and G. 
Rose, D. P. . 
Ryan, Launcelot . 
Smythe, J. J. 
Sheppard, Thomas 
Splatt, W. F. 
Steel, Thomas 
Steel, Robert 
Stephens and Allan 
Stephens, John 
Smythe and Austin 
Steiglitz, C. A. Von 
Steiglitz, R. W. . 
Scott, Andrew 
Scott, Brothers 
Strong and Foster 
Stevens, J. W. 
Stodart, D. E. 
Sprot, Alexander 
Scales, Adolphus 
Simson, H. N. 
Selby and Mitchell 
Stillard and M'Dowell 
Staughton, Simon 
Steward and Kemshed 
Storey, Thomas 
Smith and Brock . 
Sutherland, Robert 
Saunders, Charles 
Stevens and Thomson 
Swanston, Charles 



27 10 



APPENDIX B. 



445 



Sheppard, Thomas 
Splatt, W. F. 
Srnyley and Austin 
Sha'rp, Peter 
Scott, Gray, and Marr 
Thomson. J. and W. 
Do.' 

Taylor and M'Pherson 
Do. 

Thomson, William 
Teiment and Lyon 
Turnbull, Brothers 
Thomson and Graham 
Tolson, Joseph 
Thomson, J. and J. 
Taylor and Cornish 
Tulloch, T. E. 
Taylor, Robert 
Do. 

Thomson and Cunningh 
Urquhart, George 
Urquhart and Glendenning 
Urquhart, Roderick 
Vine, Richard 
Wilson, Brothers 
Do. 

Wiselaskie, J. D 
Winter, Trevor 
Walker, John 
Do. . 
Were, Brothers 
Wallace, John 
Walker and M'Laughlan, 
Winter, John 
Wickham. Messrs. 
White, James 
Winter, George 
Winter, S. P. 
Watson, W. 
Wright and Montgomery 
White, C.J. 
Whitehead, Robert 
Willis and Swanston 
Wills, H. S. 
Do. 

Walsh, Patrick 
Webster, Lawrence 
Webster, James 
Ware, John, 
Williams, John 
White, V. R, 
Yuilie, Archibald 
Youl, George 
Young and Turnbull 

Total, 
GIPPSLAND. 
Abbott, John 
Armitage and Smith, . 
Aitken, James 
Bayless, Edward W. 



£10 
12 
10 
5 
20 
10 
10 
12 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 

11 

17 
12 
10 
10 
10 
5 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
17 
10 
10 
10 
20 
15 
10 
12 
10 
10 
17 
V 
10 
15 
10 
15 
10 
12 
27 

m 

10 
12 

10 

10 
5 
10 
10 
15 



£4925 0 



£10 
10 
10 
10 



Bennett, William 
Bentley, Godfrey 
Blomffeld, Thomas 
Bodman, Henry 
Buntine, Hugh 
Buckley, P. C. 
Buckle v, Edmund 
Do. 

Boyd, A. Cunningham 
Buchanan and Co. 
Collins and Maxwell 
Cunningham, Robert 
Cunningham. Boyd 
Crooke, Edward 
Curtis, John 
Campbell and Fraser 
Davis, Joseph 
Davis, John 
Dobson and Morgan 
Davis, James W. 
Davis, John 
Frances, Thomas 
Foster, John 
Gorringe, Thomas 
Hobson, Edwin 
Hawdon, John 
Jones, Frederick 
Jones, David 
Longhman, J. M. 
Do. 

Lucas, Charles 

Do. 
Kins, John 
Do. 

MacAlister, T. and M. 
M'Lean and Gibbs 
Macmillan, Angus 
Meyrick, Maurice 
Meyrick, Henry H. 
Mason, Mashfield 
Macintosh, Archibald 
M'Leod, Archibald 
Xeil, Frank A. 
Okeden, P. D. 
Pearson, Helen 
Rintoul, James 
Reeve, John 
Rintoul, James 
Raymond. W. O'Dell 
Scott, William. 
Scott, Henrv 
Scott, John" 
Sparks, Octavius B. 
Stratton, Rickard, and 
Thomson, Robert 
Turnbull, Patrick 
Taylor, J. S. 
Yarney, Joseph 
Walker, William 



£783 0 



ABSTRACT OF THE FOREGOING. 

Western Port, ..... £3,492 0 

Murrav, . ... 1,984 1 0 

Portland Bav, ..... 4,925 0 0 

Gippsland, . . . . . 783 0 0 



Total, . . £11,184 10 0 



APPENDIX C. 



ESTIMATED EXPENDITURE OF THE LOCAL ESTABLISHMENTS OF PORT 
PHILLIP, FOR THE YEAR 1847. 



His Honour the Superintendent, . . £1500 

Office of His Honour the Superintendent, including 
Clerks, Messenger, Fuel and Water, and inciden- 
tal expenses, 
The Resident Judge, 

Clerk of the Crown and Crown Prosecutor, 
Crown Solicitor and Clerk of the Peace, 
Deputy-Registrar, 

Clerks, .... 
Clerk to the Resident Judge, 
Crier, ..... 
Travelling expenses of Resident Judge, 
Deputy-Sheriff, 

Clerk, .... 
Bailiffs, .... 
Messenger, .... 
Sub- Treasurer, .... 
Clerks, .... 
Messenger, .... 
Fuel and Water, Postages and Incidentals, 
Post- Master, .... 
Two Clerks at £140 and one at £125, 
Assistant Clerk, 
Three Letter-Carriers, 

Commission to Post-Masters and Conveyance of 

Mails, &c, 
Harbour-Master's Department, 
Lighthouse Establishment, 
Telegraph Stations, 
Coroner's Department, 
Police of Melbourne, 
Water Police, 

Rural Police, .... 
Gaol Establishment, 



0 0 



539 


17 


5 


1500 


0 


0 


400 


0 


0 


300 


0 


0 


450 


0 


0 


■434 


10 


0 


150 


0 


0 


80 


0 


0 


100 


0 


0 


400 


0 


0 


140 


0 


0 


1000 


0 


0 


31 


18 


.9 


400 


0 


0 


561 


11 


1 


31 


18 


9 


14 


16 


11 


380 


0 


0 


265 


0 


0 


109 


10 


0 


219 


0 


0 


4371 


10 


6 


1065 


1 


3 


518 


17 


6 


128 


18 


9 


230 


0 


0 


2176 


12 


6 


150 


0 


0 


3203 


11 


0 


1653 


15 


0 



APPENDIX C. 



447 



Medical Establishment, 
Schools, 

Public Works and Buildings, 
Botanic Garden, Melbourne, 
Mechanics' Institution, do. 
Electoral Lists, Preparing, 
Episcopalian Church Establishment, 
Presbyterian Church Establishment, 
Roman Catholic, do. 
Wesleyan- Methodist, do. 



£586 17 6 

950 0 0 

14,077 12 6 

250 0 0 

150 0 0 

100 0 0 

450 0 0 

450 0 0 

350 0 0 

200 0 0 



Total, £37,631 2 0 

N.B. — There are some other items I cannot well ascertain, 
from the mixing up of the concerns of Port Phillip with those of 
New South Wales, that will bring the whole Expenditure up to 
about £50,000. 



m Co* 



FINIS. 



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